Nearly 1 in 6 California adults has a mental health need, and approximately 1 in 20 suffers from a serious mental illness that makes it difficult to carry out major life activities. The rate among children is even higher: 1 in 13 suffers from a mental illness that limits participation in daily activities.
In mental health care, counties play a large role in financing and care delivery, and outpatient settings for care dominate. However, less is known about the mental health system — from prevalence of individual disorders to statewide costs of care to quality of care delivery — than about the medical system. This report uses the most recent data available — from 2009 and 2010.
Mental Health Care in California: Painting a Picture provides an overview of mental health in California: disease prevalence, suicide rates, the state’s care delivery system, supply and use of treatment providers, and access to care. The report also highlights available quality data and the most recent data on national mental health care spending.
Key findings include:
An interactive graphic maps the wide geographic variation of mental illness in California.
The full report and all the charts found in the report are available under Document Downloads. For an interesting discussion on this topic, listen to this edition of KQED’s Forum program.