National Survey on Drug Use, Mental Health

Some encouraging trends amongst adolescents and young adults when it comes to drug use and their mental health. We're learning that from the annual national survey on drug use and health released today, it surveyed more than 60,000 people ranging in age to reach these findings. Rear Admiral Christopher Jones is the acting director of the Substance Abuse and Mental Services Administration which conducted the survey. What did the report find? Well first, the NSDUH, which is released each year by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration, really reflects the snapshot of behavioral health in the U.S. And what we saw this year was a continued encouraging trend among adolescents and young adults that we started to see last year, but that continued to show downward trends in drug use, alcohol use, and mental health among adolescents and young adults. In particular, among adolescents aged 12 to 17, we saw declines in most substance use outcomes, including binge drinking, vaping, marijuana use, as well as reduced suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts, and major depression. And we saw similar trends among young adults. We saw some diverging trends when we looked at older adults. So older adults continue to show a rise in marijuana use, hallucinogen use, as well as suicidal thoughts, plans, and attempts. And then I think a key take-home message is that we did see that access to addiction and mental health treatment in the U.S. remains a challenge. About half of people with a mental illness in the past year did not get treatment for their mental health, and about 85 percent of people with a past-year substance use disorder did not receive treatment. So we see some positive trends, but also opportunities to close the treatment gap. So would you say there's a correlation between mental health and substance abuse? Yes, this is a key piece of the annual report that's released today, is that we do highlight that really the norm is that people who are struggling with mental health challenges are using substances at higher rates, whether that's alcohol, marijuana, prescription opioids, other illicit substances. We see whether you have anxiety or depression or mental illness, you tend to use drugs more often than people who don't have those conditions. And the same is in reverse. People who are struggling with addiction tend to also have mental health challenges. And this is where there's an opportunity for health care providers, primary care docs, mental health providers, addiction treatment providers to really work together to make sure that we're providing comprehensive care for people, because honestly, they're showing up in offices across the country really dealing with both issues. Rear Admiral Christopher Jones, acting director there, we so appreciate it. Like you said, some positive trends, but also something to look out for and to improve. Thank you for being with us here on the DMV Zone. We'll be right back.