The National Behavioral Health Barometer presents data such as rates of serious mental illness, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, underage drinking, and percentages of Americans who seek treatment.
Report Tracks America’s Behavioral Health
SAMHSA’s new National Behavioral Health Barometer presents data on key indicators of behavioral health issues-including rates of serious mental illness, suicidal thoughts, substance abuse, underage drinking, and percentages of Americans who seek treatment for these disorders. These data are presented at the national level, as well as for each state and the District of Columbia. The SAMHSA Barometer differs from previous reports in that it displays data amassed from a variety of sources, including the National Survey on Drug Use and Heath (NSDUH), Monitoring the Future, Youth Risk Behavior Survey, and others. Because the data comprising the Barometer are drawn from a variety of federal sources, a rich array of information is provided, including differentiation by gender, age group, and ethnicity, where possible. The Barometer also provides point-in-time data (e.g., adolescents’ past-month use of cigarettes in 2012) with trend-over-time data (e.g., marijuana use by high school students from 1971 to the present), thereby providing a picture of progress on emerging issues. "Unlike many behavioral health reports, its focus is not only on what is going wrong in terms of behavioral health, but what is improving and how communities might build on that progress," says SAMHSA Administrator Pamela S. Hyde, J.D
The Barometer reveals improvements in vital areas of behavioral health. For example, the number of people receiving buprenorphine treatment for heroin addiction increased 400 percent between 2006 and 2010. Also, the number of people receiving outpatient behavioral health treatment through Medicare increased more than 30 percent between 2006 and 2010.
In addition to the national Barometer, data are presented for each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The data presented include the percentage of mental health consumers served by the state’s public mental health system, and include statistics on consumers who reported improved functioning from this treatment. State-specific statistics on persons receiving medication-assisted therapies (e.g., methadone, buprenorphine) for substance use disorders are presented in easy-to-read graphical formats. These and other data presented in the individual state Barometers are based on a "small area estimation" methodology that combines state-level NSDUH data with county and census block group/tract-level data from the state. This technique yields more precise estimates at the state level. Individual state-specific Barometers will be published on a regular basis as part of SAMHSA’s larger behavioral health quality improvement approach.
Taken together, the national- and state-level Barometers will serve as useful tools to help public health authorities more effectively identify and address behavioral health issues within their communities, and will serve as a basis for tracking and addressing behavioral health disparities.
The National Behavioral Health Barometer - and the reports from the 50 states and the District of Columbia - can be downloaded from the SAMHSA website.
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