Mental Health Crisis

Individual and Societal Issues Exacerbated by COVID Epidemic

 Mental illness costs the U.S. economy $200 billion annually.

 More than 50 million Americans suffer from mental health disorders.

Less than 50% seek treatment.

The State of Mental Health

 
  • Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death in the US.

    In 2019, 47,511 Americans died by suicide.

    In 2019, there were an estimated 1.38M suicide attempts.

  • Major depressive disorder affects approximately 17.3 million American adults, or about 7.1% of the U.S. population age 18 and older, in a given year. (National Institute of Mental Health “Major Depression”, 2017).

    Adults with a depressive disorder or symptoms have a 64 percent greater risk of developing coronary artery disease. (National Institute of Health, Heart disease and depression: A two-way relationship, 2017).

  • An estimated 95,000 people (approximately 68,000 men and 27,000 women) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third-leading preventable cause of death in the United States (NIH).

    These deaths shorten the lives of those who die by an average of almost 29 years, for a total of 2.8 million years of potential life lost.

    We know the power & potential of psychedelic-assisted therapy to save lives and provide better and new treatment options for addiction and mental illness.

  • Overdose deaths reached a record high in 2020. More than 20,000 from the year before.

  • National Eating Disorders Association reports increases as high as 70 to 80% in calls to its helpline.

  • Cigarette Smoke is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.

  • Approximately 2.3 million Americans are presently diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but the number affected by this order is even greater.

  • An estimated 6.2 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer's dementia in 2021. Seventy-two percent are age 75 or older.

  • An estimated 1.2% of U.S. adults had OCD in the past year (NIMH).