Mental Health Facts

A Month of Mental Health Facts: Fact-of-the-day
Prepared by the staff of the NYU Child Study Center

Twelve million children and adolescents suffer from a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. Serious emotional disturbance affects 1 in every 10 young people, but an estimated two-thirds are not getting the help they need.
Children with untreated Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder drop out of high school 10 times more than other children.
Three to 5% of teenage girls have a diagnosable eating disorder.
Forty-seven percent of parents say their chief concern is crime and violence in school.
With reported estimates of 5-20% of all children being diagnosed with Anxiety Disorders, they are the most common mental health problems children face.
Fifty percent of kids are bullied and l0% are victims on a regular basis.
Five to 20% of all children have learning difficulties—1 in 5 children in every classroom.
Only one out of every five children with a psychiatric disorder gets treatment.
More than 3 million children suffer from Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.
One in 100 children is diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder or Schizophrenia.
Although 90% of those diagnosed with anorexia are girls, boys now account for 4–10 percent of the patients with eating disorders.
Approximately 50–60% of all children born in the 1990s will live in a home where there has been a divorce.
More children suffer from psychiatric illness than from leukemia, diabetes, and AIDS combined.
Half of all cases of adults with psychiatric disorders report that it started before age 14.
The U.S. Surgeon General's office, in its first "Call to Action" against underage drinking, appealed to Americans to do more to stop America's 11 million current underage drinkers from using alcohol and to keep other younger people from starting.
Roughly 25 million children age 17 and under are obese or overweight, nearly one-third of the 74 million children in that age group, according to Census Bureau data and a 2006 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Anorexia and Bulimia have the highest death rate (about 5–10%) of any childhood psychiatric illness.
Between 1980 and 1996, the suicide rate among children aged 10–14 years increased by 100%. Suicide is the sixth leading cause of death for 5 to 15-year-olds and the third leading cause of death for 15 to 24-year olds.
Medication combined with behavior therapy works best for children with ADHD.
Children are more at risk of violence at home and on the streets than in school.
Fewer than 10% of the 80,000 public schools in the U.S. have comprehensive mental health services.
Aggressive children comprise one-third of the referrals to child and adolescent clinics.
An incident of child abuse is reported, on average, every l0 seconds. More than 2.9 million reports were made in 2003; the actual incidence is presumed to be much higher.
Twenty to 40% of all adolescents with eating disorders will also have Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Eighty-four percent of elementary school-age inner-city boys had heard guns being shot, 87% had seen someone arrested, and 25% had seen someone get killed.
About 5–10% of the school-aged population refuse school at some time or another.
Fifty-nine percent of those with Bipolar Disorder reported suffering their first symptoms during childhood or adolescence.
Fifty percent of students receiving special education services through the public schools are identified as having learning disabilities, according to the 24th Annual Report to Congress on the Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, 2002
Twenty-four percent of high school students have seriously thought about attempting suicide.
Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) runs in families: 15–20% of mothers, 20–30% of fathers, and 25% of siblings of children with ADHD have ADHD.
Girls are underdiagnosed for ADHD because they are more prone to the "inattentive-type" of ADHD, according to a study in the June 2007 issue of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology.