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Spotlight on national behavioral health trends: a 10-year window into key mental health and substance abuse indicators
Spotlight on national behavioral health trends: a 10-year window into key mental health and substance abuse indicators
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- White paper (FAIR Health, Inc.)
- Contributor(s):
- FAIR Health, Inc., issuing body.
- Publication:
- New York, NY : FAIR Health, Inc., May 2019
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Mental Disorders -- epidemiology
Mental Disorders -- therapy
Mental Health Services -- statistics & numerical data
Substance-Related Disorders -- epidemiology
Substance-Related Disorders -- therapy
United States - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- In the past decade, there has been widespread concern about evidence of a nationwide increase in behavioral health disorders, including both mental health and substance use disorders. At the same time, access to behavioral healthcare may have been increased by the passage of the Paul Wellstone and Pete Domenici Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008 (Mental Health Parity Act). To shed light on behavioral health trends and patterns in this period, FAIR Health analyzed 2007-2017 data in our database of over 28 billion private healthcare claim records. These are some of the findings, all for the period 2007 to 2017 unless otherwise noted: (1) Claim lines with behavioral health diagnoses increased 108 percent, rising from 1.3 percent to 2.7 percent of all medical claim lines. (2) In 2007 and 2017, major depressive disorder (MDD) was the most common diagnosis in the distribution of claim lines with mental health diagnoses, but its share of the distribution fell from 28 percent in 2007 to 26 percent in 2017. (3) In the same years, claim lines with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) became much more common, rising from 12 percent to 22 percent of the distribution of mental health claim lines. (4) Of mental health diagnoses with over 0.1 percent of all medical claim lines, GAD had the greatest increase in claim lines. GAD increased 217 percent from 0.168 percent to 0.523 percent of all medical claim lines. (5) Claim lines for several eating disorders grew, particularly anorexia with an increase of 156 percent, increasing from 0.007 percent to 0.02 percent of all medical claim lines. (6) The pediatric population, defined as ages 0-22 to include young adults of college age, was disproportionately represented in the increase in claim lines with mental health diagnoses. (a) For adjustment disorders, claim lines for individuals aged 11-18 rose 54 percent, increasing from 0.57 percent to 0.89 percent of all medical claim lines for this age cohort. (b) The pediatric share of claim lines with MDD increased from 15 percent to 23 percent. (c) Claim lines for individuals aged 19-22 (college age) increased in their share of the pediatric MDD distribution, from 29 percent to 36 percent. (d) For GAD, claim lines for individuals of college age and high school age (14-18) rose by greater percentages than any adult group. Claim lines for college-age individuals increased 441 percent, growing from 0.62 percent to 3.16 percent of all medical claim lines for the age cohort. For high school-age individuals, GAD claim lines increased 389 percent, rising from 0.4 percent to 1.77 percent of all medical claim lines for that age group. (1) Claim lines associated with MDD and GAD became more common by comparison to claim lines for all medical diagnoses in most parts of the country, with the exception of the South. (2) Opioid dependence overtook alcohol dependence to occupy the largest share of claim lines with substance use disorder diagnoses. Yet, although opioid dependence claim lines increased overall from 2007 to 2017 (1,180 percent, growing from 0.016 percent to 0.252 percent of all medical claim lines), they fell 50 percent from 2015 to 2017 (from 0.479 percent to 0.252 percent of all medical claim lines). (3) "Other stimulant dependence" (dependence on stimulants other than cocaine) was the substance use disorder diagnosis with the greatest increase in claim lines from 2007 to 2017 (3,490 percent)--despite constituting a relatively small percentage of all medical claim lines, increasing from 0.001 percent to 0.03 percent of all medical claim lines. (4) Individuals 0-18 years of age had a higher share of cannabis abuse claim lines (32 percent) in 2017 than any other age group. (5) In the 23-30 age group in 2017, more claim lines for "other stimulant use" were submitted for females (56 percent) than males (44 percent).
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY-NC-DC license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (38 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101751631 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101751631