There are things you can see coming, such as global warming. You know the negative impacts are compounding at a rate that appears to be unstoppable. And then there are gigantic changes that come out of nowhere: the opioid epidemic, the fentanyl epidemic, and the epidemic of overdose deaths, which has finally started to subside (unlike global warming).

Another one of those largely unseen disasters is the mental health epidemic in the United States and throughout the world. Whatever the source of the anxiety and depression people feel, it has been accelerated with the use of technology at the same time as public funding for mental health treatment is in decline.

Into this atmosphere of high levels of ADHD, autism, anxiety, depression, drug addiction, and suicide come predatory technologies including gaming, social media, and artificial intelligence (AI). Now add the profit motive, unrestrained by regulators or courts, allowing smartphone sports betting and marijuana legalization, and you have a perfect storm that is becoming the great mental health pandemic of 2025.

United for Global Mental Health reports that in 2023, there is “no sign of growth in the proportion of health financing going to mental health.” The amount of the total health spend recommended for mental health issues by The Lancet is 5%. However, the actual spending is much lower, with the median global spending coming in at just 1.3%, and some countries at a negligible 0.1% of total health spending. This, despite the economic toll exacted by mental health issues. According to the authors of the report:

Mental health spending is lower than spending on many other health issues, despite being a large contributor to poor health for a whole host of historical and contemporary reasons. In 2019, substance abuse and neurological and mental health conditions across all ages together accounted for one in 10 DALYs (10.1%) worldwide. Mental illness accounted for 5.1% of the global burden, whereas neurological conditions accounted for 3.5% and substance abuse, 1.5%.

DALY is an acronym for “disability-adjusted life years,” a common way to measure the impact of diseases and disorders on the length of life. Therefore, mental health disorders are estimated to reduce life expectancy by 10.1%, and yet mental health care consumes less than the recommended 5% of the total health spending in all but a handful of countries.

It feels as though many parents, guardians and caregivers have abdicated their authority to electronic devices. Since 1980, the federal government and most state governments have backed off from providing mental health shelters and services. Courts and regulators are also playing catch-up to technological developments that target kids. Once again, the combination is lethal, with no one taking responsibility for protecting our children from addiction while corporations are free to push our kids into a lifetime of compulsive behavior.

It’s not that we lack the resources to tackle the great mental health pandemic of 2025; a five-fold increase in mental health spending would only bring us to the recommended spend. It’s a matter of what other things that health dollars are being spent on that would be better spent on mental health. Now factor in the non-health related costs of inadequate mental health services: law enforcement, court systems, jails, and losses due to crime. The mental health dollar is a dollar well spent!

In a recent post on AddictionNews, we reviewed a new longitudinal study that shows excellent results when toddlers and caregivers undergo Parent-Child Interactive Therapy, involving audited play sessions with real-time coaching from a trained therapist. Is it expensive? Yes. Does it work? Yes. It results in measurably less stress for caregivers and fewer behavioral problems for toddlers. And those improvements are stable over time.

It is a shame that we live in such a stressful world that moms, dads and caregivers need to be taught how to read a baby’s thoughts and respond appropriately, with love and patience, but if that is the case, so be it. Parent-Child Interactive Therapy is still less expensive than sending a child to school with behavioral problems. The greatest impact is on caregivers, who report overwhelming satisfaction with the program. Follow-up studies are needed on the caregivers to see if the training reduces their own substance use issues.

We will continue to report at AddictionNews on the great mental health pandemic of 2025 as it unfolds. We welcome your suggestions for topics at AddictionNews-at-orobora-dot-com. 

Written by Steve O’Keefe. First published December 2, 2024.

Sources:

“Financing of Mental Health: The Current Situation and The Way Forward,” United for Global Mental Health, retrieved November 27, 2024.

Image courtesy GoodFon.com, used under Creative Commons license.