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Important Facts for Health status: mental health past 30 days

Definition

Percentage of adults aged 18 years and older who reported seven or more days when their mental health was not good in the past 30 days.

Numerator

Number of survey respondents who reported seven or more days when their mental health was not good in the past 30 days.

Denominator

Total number of survey respondents excluding those with missing, "Don't know/Not sure," and "Refused" responses.

Data Interpretation Issues

Question Text: "Now thinking about your mental health, which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health NOT good?" Increased number of U.S. households without landline phones and an under-representation of certain demographic groups that were not well-represented in the sample. More details about these changes can be found at: https://ibis.health.utah.gov/pdf/opha/resource/brfss/RakingImpact2011.pdf]. As with all surveys, some error results from non-response (e.g., refusal to participate in the survey or to answer specific questions), and measurement (e.g., social desirability or recall bias). Error was minimized by use of strict calling protocols, good questionnaire design, standardization of interviewer behavior, interviewer training, and frequent, on-site interviewer monitoring and supervision.

Why Is This Important?

Mental health is one of the 12 Healthy People 2020 Leading Health Indicators. Mental health refers to an individual's ability to negotiate the daily challenges and social interactions of life without experiencing undue emotional or behavioral incapacity. Mental health and mental disorders can be influenced by numerous conditions including biologic and genetic vulnerabilities, acute or chronic physical dysfunction, and environmental conditions and stresses. Approximately 32% of the U.S. population is affected by mental illness in any given year.^1^ The BRFSS mental health question is an attempt to obtain a global measure of recent mental and emotional distress.[[br]][[br]] ---- 1. Kessler, R.C., Chiu, W.T., Demler, O., Merikangas, K. R., Walters, E.E. (2005). Prevalence, severity, and comorbidity of twelve-month DSM-IV disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R). ''Archives of General Psychiatry'', 62(6), 617-627.

Healthy People Objective: Reduce the proportion of persons who experience major depressive episode (MDEs)

U.S. Target: Not applicable, see subobjectives in this category

Other Objectives

One of Utah's 42 Community Health Indicators One of the Council of State & Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), Chronic Disease Indicators: "Recent mental health among adults aged 18+ years." (CSTE reports mean number of mentally unhealthy days in the previous 30 days)

How Are We Doing?

In 2020, approximately 23.1% (crude rate) of Utah adults reported seven or more days when their mental health was not good in the past 30 days. This percentage was higher for adults with lower income levels. Older adults are less likely to report poor mental health status. In order to analyze the BRFSS data by race, we combined years 2018-2020 using the new BRFSS methodology. According to this analysis using age-adjusted rates, the American Indian/Native Alaskan population reported the highest percentage of seven or more days when their mental health was not good in the past 30 days (22.9%) while the Utah Pacific Islander adults reported the lowest percentage (16.3%).

How Do We Compare With the U.S.?

Looking at age-adjusted rates for 2020, more Utah adults reported seven or more days when their mental health was not good in the past 30 days (22.6%) when compared to adults in the U.S. as a whole (20.5%).
The information provided above is from the Utah Department of Health's Center for Health Data IBIS-PH web site (http://epht.health.utah.gov). The information published on this website may be reproduced without permission. Please use the following citation: " Retrieved Thu, 28 March 2024 8:50:35 from Utah Department of Health, Center for Health Data, Indicator-Based Information System for Public Health Web site: http://epht.health.utah.gov ".

Content updated: Tue, 20 Dec 2022 09:42:41 MST