20% of Adults Had Recent Mental Health Help in 2020

A new report indicates one-fifth of U.S. adults in 2020 had received mental health treatment within the past year, marking a tick up from 2019 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In an analysis based on data from the 2020 National Health Interview Survey, researchers with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics estimate that 20.3% of adults had either taken prescription medication for mental health, received therapy or counseling, or done both in the past 12 months. Approximately 10% had received therapy or counseling, while 16.5% had taken medication.

Though the report's authors did not examine what factors may have driven the data, the findings come amid widespread concern about the mental health impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and its related school closures, job losses and social isolation. Separate data has shown about 4 in 10 adults reported symptoms of anxiety and/or depressive disorder in January of 2021, compared with about 1 in 10 in January through June of 2019. Another CDC report released earlier this year found that the share of adults with recent symptoms of anxiety or depression increased from 36.4% in August of 2020 to 41.5% in early 2021

The new findings represent a statistically significant increase of about a percentage point from 2019, when researchers said 19.2% of adults had received any mental health treatment. That year, an estimated 15.8% of adults had taken prescription medication for their mental health and 9.5% had received counseling or therapy within the past year.

And though the increase was small, it may signal that those experiencing mental health issues weren't able to access care, or that mental health issues may be worse now than in the pandemic's earlier days, according to experts who spoke with the news outlet HealthDay.

Across the board in 2020, white adults were the most likely to have received mental health treatment (24.4%), taken medication (20.6%) and received counseling or therapy (11.2%) within the past year. More than 15% of Black adults, close to 13% of Hispanic adults and nearly 8% of Asian adults had received any mental health treatment. Women also were more likely than men to have received treatment, as well as medication or counseling.

By age, adults 18 to 44 years old were about as likely to have received any mental health treatment as those 45 to 64 years old. A higher share of that older group had taken medication, while a higher share of the younger group had received counseling or therapy.

Mental health treatment also varied geographically, with the shares of adults who'd received any mental health treatment and who'd taken medication increasing in line with whether they lived in a more rural area. The opposite trend was true for those who'd received counseling or therapy, with lower shares of participants in more rural areas.

In a separate but related report based on National Health Interview Survey data from the second half of 2020, CDC researchers said 77.5% of adults always or usually received the social and emotional support they needed. Hispanic, Black and Asian adults, however, were significantly less likely than whites to have garnered that level of help.