Youth across the nation face overwhelming mental health and substance use challenges, yet our health care system isn’t designed to meet their needs:
• Over half (55%) of young adults with mental health or substance use issues don’t seek treatment, and 28% cite cost as the main barrier.
• Emergency department visits for youth mental health reasons doubled from 2011 to 2020, and suicide-related visits increased fivefold.
• Adolescents are being left behind in the substance use crisis—drug overdose deaths more than doubled from 2018 to 2022, with opioids involved in 78% of those deaths.
This report is the second from the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Youth Mental Health and Substance Use Task Force, as they continue their work to address these urgent issues.
Their recommendations focus on expanding crisis services, integrating behavioral health into primary care, improving workforce capacity, and strengthening continuity of care. Youth and families can’t wait. It’s time to build a health care system that works for everyone.
Read the report and explore the task force’s continued efforts.
Thank you to all our task force co-chairs and members: Steve Beshear, Val Demings, Jaime Herrera Beutler, John Kasich, Noopur Agarwal, James Carroll, Sandy Chung, Kana Enomoto, Patrice Harris MD, MA, Amy Kennedy, Angela Kimball, Vikki Wachino, Michael Schmitt, and Sophie Szew
