National non-profit ranks Ohio middle of the road in mental health

The following article was originally published in the Ohio Capital Journal and published on News5Cleveland.com under a content-sharing agreement.

Giving a new snapshot of mental health in the country, Ohio ranked 20th in a Mental Health America study of adults and youth and the level of access to care states provide.

The study found 23% of adults experienced a mental illness in the past year, equivalent to nearly 60 million Americans, and 1 in 5 young people had “at least one major depressive episode” in the past year, based on 2022 data.

That year, the Ohio Department of Health itself released findings showing deaths from suicide in the state had increased 2%, and it was the second-leading cause of death among Ohioans between the ages of 10 and 14, as well as ages 20 to 34.

In the new study , 1 in 4 adults who reported “frequent mental distress” cited cost as a reason they couldn’t seek care, with the analysis also finding only one mental health provider for every 340 people in the U.S.

The 2024 report used national numbers from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration that were “as current as possible” to analyze the number of adults and youth in each state with mental health and/or substance abuse issues, the availability of adequate insurance and barriers to access that exist.

Measures in the study included adults with any mental illness, a substance use disorder in the past year, or serious thoughts of suicide. Youth measures included major depressive episodes, substance use disorders in the past year, and serious contemplation of suicide.

Adults with substance use disorder who needed but did not receive treatment, uninsured adults with any mental illness, and adults with private insurance that didn’t cover mental health were also measured, along with youth who did not receive services for a major depressive episode or had insurance that couldn’t cover the care they needed.

“When individuals forgo care, their conditions often worsen, causing them to reach a crisis point in which they need to receive care,” the study stated. “This is not only costly to the individual but also to medical providers, states and the federal government, who are responsible for most uncompensated care costs.”

Researchers also looked at mental health workforce availability in analyzing the states.

Ohio’s overall ranking of 20 put it in the middle in terms of prevalence of mental illness and rates of access to care, alongside Kentucky (19th) and Florida (21st).

Massachusetts was at the top of the list with the lowest “prevalence of mental illness and higher rates of access to care,” followed by Connecticut and Maine, according to the study.

Nevada landed at the bottom of the list, with Arizona and Montana just above it.

Separating adults and youth, the study bumped Ohio up just slightly to 17th in adult access to care and lower prevalence of mental illness, but in youth rankings, the state fell to 29th.

Ohio was ranked 12th when measured purely on access to care, but 30th when looking solely at prevalence of mental illness, according to the study.

Data found that more than 19% of Ohioans had a substance abuse disorder in need of care, accounting for more than 1.73 million state residents, and 21% of Ohio’s youth had experienced at least one major depressive episode in the previous year, or 190,000 young people.

More than 1.5 million Ohio adults with a substance use disorder needed but didn’t receive treatment, according to the study, and more than 160,000 adults in the state with any mental illness were uninsured.

Unmet needs in mental health came up in an Ohio-specific study done earlier this year by the Health Policy Institute of Ohio. The HPIO found in its 2024 Health Value Dashboard that mental health treatment for adults was one of the areas in which the state had “greatly worsened.”

Youth mental health was a concern for the HPIO as well, particularly the disproportionate rates in the LGBTQ+ community, with youth suicide rates 4.8 times worse for that population compared to other youth.

In terms of the workforce availability, Ohio’s numbers weren’t far off from the national rate in the MHA study, with 330 people for every mental health provider in the state.

“Over the next 5 years, the National Center for Health Workforce Analysis has projected increasing shortages for several behavioral health providers, including psychologists, psychiatrists and mental health and addiction counselors,” the report stated.

The study recommended states expand the use of “peer support specialists,” individuals who are “trained and certified in using their lived experience to help others impacted by mental illness or substance use disorders,” according to the Ohio Department of Mental Health & Addiction Services’ website .

“To further expand the use of peer support specialists there must be an increase in the settings in which they can practice, the services they can provide and reimbursement for those services,” the MHA study stated.

Ohio announced in January that it would be launching a $20 million study that would last 10 years and study behavioral health outcomes in the state. The announcement came just after $175 million in mental health spending was signed into law by Gov. Mike DeWine.