“Let’s take on mental health. Especially among our children whose lives and education have been turned upside-down.”
At President Biden’s first State of the Union address to the US congress last night he addressed many important topics, including a commitment to better mental health for America.
The USA faces an unprecedented mental health crisis among people of all ages. Four in ten adults report symptoms of anxiety and depression and more than half of all parents are concerned about their children’s mental health.
People from minoritized communities are disproportionately affected and under-treated, and many Americans have limited access to mental health services due to the cost.
In the speech, Biden announced a new a vision to get all Americans the mental health services they need, especially veterans and children. He announced a national mental health strategy to strengthen system capacity, connect more Americans to care and transform the health and social care infrastructure to address mental health holistically and equitably.
This new strategy has a range of new investments and funding, in particular a commitment to invest in new research. The presidents FY23 budget will call for investment of $5m for research into promising models for treating mental health conditions.
The President also reiterated concerns expressed by the USA's Surgeon General in December about the impact of social media on children and young peoples’ mental health. The President called on Congress to strengthen privacy protections, ban targeted advertising to children and demand technology companies to stop collecting data on children.
Children were also struggling before the pandemic. Bullying, violence, trauma and the harms of social media.
The president has committed to expanding access to mental health support in schools and colleges by doubling the number of school-based mental health professionals. To help schools sustain these roles, the Department of Health and Human Services will make it easier for school-based mental health professionals to seek reimbursement from Medicaid, and the President’s FY23 budget will propose $1 billion to help schools hire additional counsellors and school psychologists and other health professionals.
Seeing President Bidens commitment to better mental health for all is refreshing, and we particularly welcome the recognition that more needs to be invested in research. Without research, it is impossible to know what approaches work, to find better interventions and ultimately to find preventions for mental illnesses. - Lea Milligan, MQ's CEO
If you would like to support mental health research please consider making a donation. It is only though people like you that MQ is able to support researchers at some of the World's top institutions to find solutions to the mental health crisis.
