“What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘health?’” I waited for a brief moment before receiving a response, “Coronavirus and its effect on  the stock market.” Economic health was not the type of health I was expecting to hear, but given that he was a business major investing in the stock market, I could understand why he’d said that. Another response I received was, “I think about going to the gym and keeping your body fit and healthy.” This was a more typical response on the day, but both of these answers emphasized a certain point for me: In today’s society, we don’t quite put enough emphasis on mental health as there should be. Don’t get me wrong, there has been a drastic improvement on the attention it’s received over the past 100 years, but there clearly is still more that can be done. 

When I asked another one of my interviewees what he believed the percentage of Americans with a mental illness is, he responded with, “I feel like it’s gotta be a max of about 20%.” According to the National Council of Behavioral Health, as of 2019, 46.4% of American adults will experience a mental illness in their lifetime. That’s almost half of all American adults. In 2019, only 41% of Americans received help from professional services with regards to their mental disorder. We see commercials and ads discussing mental health issues, but besides that we aren’t educated much on it. We barely get a semester’s worth of this information in high school and even then, it’s often just the tip of the iceberg.

“Do you think anything can be done to educate people more about mental health?” After hesitating for a second as she pondered the question, she responded with, “I feel like it could be talked about more in schools. Maybe we can get more classes that really go in depth about the issue so we can be a lot more educated on the topic.” I believe that our public and private  school systems are where it all starts. If the youth are able to grow up with this information ready at hand, there could be a dramatic change in the way we tackle mental health issues. Not only would the general public be more aware of how to identify and help those with mental disorders, but those with the disorders would also know about the resources they have at hand. When we all come together for a common cause, the results can be incredible… but we have to start somewhere first.