20 PERCENT OF AMERICANS ARE MENTALLY DISTURBED

MENTAL ILLNESS STRUCK ONE IN
FIVE U.S. ADULTS IN 2010: REPORT

www.latimes.com - One in five adults in the U.S. had a mental illness in 2010, with people ages 18 to 25 having the highest rates, according to a national survey. The report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s National Survey on Drug Use and Health, released Thursday, includes information from 68,487 completed surveys about mental illness (as defined by the American Psychiatric Assn.’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV) and substance abuse among adults and children. Rates have remained fairly stable since 2009, with only a slight uptick in overall numbers.  Among the highlights, people in the 50-plus age bracket had the lowest incidence of any mental illness (14.3%), while those ages 18 to 25 had the highest, at 29.9%. Women had higher rates than men: 23% versus 16.8%

When broken down by racial and ethnic groups, the highest rates of mental illness were seen among people who reported two or more races (25.4%), followed by whites (20.6%), blacks (19.7%), Native Americans or Alaska natives (18.7%), Hispanics (18.3%) and Asians (15.8%).  “Mental illness is not an isolated public health problem,” SAMHSA administrator Pamela Hyde said in a news release. “Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity often co-exist with mental illness and treatment of the mental illness can reduce the effects of these disorders.” Mental illness can lead to thoughts of suicide, and in 2010 8.7 million people thought seriously about taking their own lives. In that group, 2.5 million people made plans to kill themselves, and 1.1 million attempted suicide. Substance abuse sometimes goes hand in hand with mental illness; those who had any mental illness had higher substance abuse or dependence rates.

About 20% of American adults reported having had a mental illness during the preceding year, a government survey found. The figure rose to almost 30% of those in the 18 to 25 age group. Depression was an issue among children ages 12 to 17. Almost 2 million people in that age bracket had a major depressive episode in 2010 that lasted at least two weeks.  Increasingly, anxiety, loneliness and mental illness are characteristic of living in big cities.

WHAT DO THE VEDIC TEACHINGS TELL US? 

Many large cities are unsafe at night. For example, it is understood that no sane person will walk in New York’s Central Park at night because he knows he will almost certainly be mugged. Apart from ordinary thieves, who abound in this age, large cities are filled with cutthroat businessmen, who enthusiastically convince people to purchase and consume useless or even harmful products. It has been well documented that beef, tobacco, liquor and many other modern products destroy one’s physical health, what to speak of mental health, and yet modern capitalists do not hesitate to use every psychological trick in the book to convince people to consume these things. Modern cities are full of mental and atmospheric pollution, and even ordinary citizens are finding them unbearable.

Śrīla A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda
Śrīla Hrdayananda dasa Goswami
Śrīmad Bhāgavatam - Canto 12: “The Age of Deterioration”
Chapter 3: “The Bhūmi-gītā”
Verse 32 - Bhaktivedanta VedaBase