Beginning in 2014, Mental Health America (MHA), the oldest nationwide mental health advocacy organization, began providing free, anonymous, evidence-based screening on its website: https://screening.mhanational.org/screening-tools/. There are screens for eleven mental health conditions: depression, anxiety, psychosis, PTSD, ADHD, postpartum depression, bipolar, addiction, eating disorders, youth mental health screen, and a self-injury survey. There is also a parental test for a child’s mental health. Two of the screens (depression and anxiety) have been translated into Spanish. In the early years of this resource, a few hundred thousand people took a screen every year. When COVID-19 hit, the number of screens increased dramatically so that now more than 16 million screens have been taken.

Persons taking a mental health screen were also asked to provide, on a voluntary basis, demographic information including: race, gender, age, state, zip code, and income. This information has enabled MHA to create a map of mental health needs in the United States. Much of this information is now available for free to the public at this website: https://mhanational.org/mhamapping/mha-state-county-data. This website allows anyone to look at the mental health needs of states and counties. It provides a color-coded map showing the prevalence of positive mental health screens for various conditions in each state and county. Because the screening website continues to attract a large number of people concerned about their mental health, the data website is updated every 90 days.

Who is taking a screen? Unsurprisingly, the majority of screeners are young–under 25, and a substantial percentage (43 percent) are under 18. More women (67 percent) than men are taking a screen. However, the race and income data show that screeners are representative of the US population on these parameters.

More than three-quarters (76 percent) of the screeners are found to have moderate or severe symptoms of one or more mental health conditions. Additionally, almost two thirds (64 percent) of those who test positive have never had any connection with a mental health provider of any kind. These data are meaningful in a number of ways. MHA does not advertise its screening website. Those who find this site do so simply through an online search. Thus, this data certainly under-counts the need for mental health services. Since a substantial majority have not gotten mental health services, the data suggest that there a many people who can get help before they get sicker. This is an opportunity for prevention.

MHA, in conjunction with Mental Health America of Illinois, is currently working on a special project concerning the data for Cook County. They are creating a special screening data map by zip code just for this county in order to help local public health departments and mental health providers to target those geographic areas and mental health conditions which are most in need of additional services.

Mark J. Heyrman is the chair of the Public Policy Committee, Mental Health America of Illinois. He can be contacted at markheyrman@outlook.com.