Survey Results: 2022 Access to Care, National Council for Mental Wellbeing

A study conducted on behalf of the National Council for Mental Wellbeing intended to obtain data on barriers to access for mental health and substance use treatment, along with how insurance/cost plays a role in looking for and receiving care.

Highlights include: 

• While nearly two-thirds of Americans (65%) rate their mental wellbeing as excellent or good, just over one quarter (26%) report fair mental wellbeing and one in 10 (10%) say their mental wellbeing is poor or very poor.
• More than 2 in 5 Americans who have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (43%) report fair mental wellbeing and more than 1 in 5 (22%) report poor or very poor mental wellbeing.
• More than 2 in 5 Americans who needed mental health care in the past 12 months but did not receive it (42%) report fair mental wellbeing and nearly 1 in 4 (24%) report poor or very poor mental wellbeing.
• More than 2 in 5 Americans (42%) report needing mental health care over the past 12 months and about 1 in 4 (24%) report needing substance use care during that timeframe.
• More than 2 in 5 Americans who needed mental health care (43%) or substance use care (43%) in the past 12 months did not receive it, compared to only about 1 in 5 of those who needed primary care (21%) and did not receive it.
• More than a third of Americans who did not get needed mental health care in the past 12 months (37%) say cost related issues (i.e., no insurance, out of pocket costs) prevented them from getting care.

Registration is now open for the 2022 NACCHO 360 Conference, to be held virtually and in-person July 19–21, 2022, in Atlanta at the Hyatt Regency. 

This year’s theme, Looking to the Future: Reshaping the Public Health System will explore how the local public health workforce and its stakeholders can move forward in the midst of an ongoing crisis while implementing traditional and innovative approaches to restructure a system built to protect the health of communities nationwide. 

Each year, the NACCHO 360 conference empowers cross-pollination by bridging traditional public health practices and disciplines with health informatics, information technology, and surveillance. 

Learn more and register here.