October 6, 2011

State Estimates of Adult Mental Illness

Researchers with the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration reviewed state and national data from the 2008 and 2009 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health to develop state-level prevalence estimates of mental illness and serious mental illness. The found that about 10.4 million American adults over age 18 experienced a serious mental illness (SMI), representing about 4.6% of all adults in the United States. SMI prevalence rates varied across the states. Rhode Island had the highest SMI rate—7.2% of the adults in the state; Hawaii had the lowest—3.5% of adults. A person diagnosed with a mental illness is considered to have SMI if symptoms of the condition have significantly decreased their ability to perform activities of daily living or independent activities of daily living.