Pandemic-related disparities persist, California Health Interview Survey finds

Key takeaways:The percentage of California young adults who say they have thought about comitting suicide is 30.5%, a significant increase over last year, and more than double the proportion from five years ago.Principal investigator Ninez Ponce says the findings reveal a major unmet need for mental health resources, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.Nearly half of adult respondents  said they had experienced an extreme weather–related event in the prior two years.The number of 18-to-24-year-olds in California who reported having thought about committing suicide at some point in their lives increased to 30.5% in 2021 from 23.9% in 2020 — the year COVID-19 emerged in the U.S. —according to new data published by the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research.Those figures represent a dramatic increase from just five years ago. The research center ’s 2016 survey found that 14.1% of California’s young adults said they had experienced thoughts of suicide at some point in their lives.The 2021 data is from the latestCalifornia Health Interview Survey, the nation ’s largest annual health survey on a single state. The survey highlights the consequences of the pandemic in terms of people’s mental health and their ability to afford or access needed health care.In the study, 36.7% of respondents age 13 to 17 said they needed help for emotional or mental health problems, but 26.2% of them did not receive any counseling in the past year.“There is an urgent need...
Source: UCLA Newsroom: Health Sciences - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: news