Mental health statistics

Published: May 25, 2008

One in four American adults — almost 58 million individuals — experience some type of mental disorder every year, including 900,000 Oklahomans.

Twenty-five percent of Oklahoma’s 3.6 million residents has some form of mental illness and 11.4 percent of the population — about 420,000 individuals — are considered to have a serious mental illness.

Fewer than one-third of American adults and 50 percent of children with a diagnosable mental disorder receive any level of treatment in any given year.

On average, it takes 4 ½ years from the time an individual’s mental illness is diagnosed to get the correct therapy and be on the road to recovery.

Mental illness is the leading cause of disability in the United States, Canada and Western Europe. Alcohol and drug use disorders are the second leading cause of disability, topping cancer, heart disease, diabetes and respiratory diseases.

At least 20 percent of Oklahoma’s prison population has some type of severe mental illness and 72 percent of female inmates in Oklahoma have a mental illness.

Sixty-seven percent of persons needing services from the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services or Medicaid are not being served.

Oklahoma spends more than $3 billion annually to deal with untreated and under-treated people with mental illness, substance abuse or addictions as well as survivors and perpetrators of domestic violence and sexual assault.

Oklahoma’s criminal justice system spends 63 percent of its annual budget of more than $1 billion to address the needs of people with mental illness or substance abuse and addiction.

Proper access to medication is the number one need of mental health consumers.

Mental disorders are defined as including bipolar disorder; depression; those who commit suicide; schizophrenia; generalized anxiety disorder; phobias; panic disorder; social phobias; obsessive-compulsive disorder; post-traumatic stress disorder; eating disorders; attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; autism; and Alzheimer’s.

Sources: Kaye Rote, executive director, Oklahoma Mental Health Consumer Council; Karina A. Forrest, executive director, National Alliance on Mental Illness of Oklahoma; Rhonda Hellstern, acting director, Mental Health Association of Central Oklahoma; Oklahoma Governor’s and Attorney General’s Blue Ribbon Task Force on Mental Health, Substance Abuse and Domestic Violence; and the National Institute of Mental Health.

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