Nearly half of New York City teens reported at least some symptoms of depression or anxiety in the last few years, indicating a need for investment in youth mental health prevention and treatment, a new Health Department report says.
Forty-eight percent of kids between 13 and 17 years old experienced at least minimal symptoms of depression, according to a report on the state of the city’s mental health crisis released by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Friday. Rates of depression ranged by severity, with 27% of teens reporting mild illness while 11% reported severe disease.
Teens also showed more early signs of depression; 38% of kids in public high schools experienced feelings of sadness or hopelessness, up from 27% a decade ago, the report said.
Those early symptoms were even more prevalent among kids in marginalized groups. Black and Latino students reported higher rates of sadness and hopelessness than their white peers. Teens who identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender experienced those feelings at roughly double the rate as youth who did not identify with those groups.
“What we see in the data is that mental health is neither static nor homogenous,” City Health Commissioner Dr. Ashwin Vasan said in a statement, adding that the statistics depict a crisis that’s worse in some communities compared to others.
The Health Department released the report, which it described as a first-of-its-kind look into the city’s state of mental health, as Mayor Eric Adams’ administration faces pressure to mitigate the mental health crisis. The city faces crisis-level overdose rates and worsening severe mental illness – challenges that have also impacted the city’s youth.
Adams released a mental health plan in 2022, designed to address severe mental illness and expanded that plan to increase prevention and treatment for youth and families. Mitigating the challenges among youth has become a cornerstone of the administration’s mental health approach, and last year the city launched a $26 million teletherapy platform with digital health firm Talkspace to increase teens’ access to therapy. Roughly 6,800 teens have signed up for the program since it launched in November.
Mental health struggles extend to New York City’s 6 million adult residents, with 23% experiencing a mental health disorder every year, the report says. An estimated 1.2 million New Yorkers have an anxiety diagnosis, and 732,000 struggle with depression.
The Health Department recommended that city officials invest in more preventative efforts, such as screening for substance use disorders and school-based mental health clinics, to intervene early in mental health challenges. The agency also pushed for payment reform and workforce incentives — initiatives that are more likely to be solved at the state level.
Dr. Jennifer Havens, chair of child and adolescent psychiatry at NYU Langone Health, said that increasing access to therapy through platforms like Teenspace and investing in school-based mental health clinics help to make mental health treatment more accessible and mainstream. But addressing the challenges capacity and quality of mental health services requires more funding for intensive clinical services.
“We don’t invest enough in the kid and family mental health system at the beginning of life,” Havens said. “If we did that appropriately and effectively, we would have fewer sick adults.”
Amanda D'Ambrosio , 2024-05-31 21:34:38
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