Posted on July 23, 2010 - by David
12.5 % of ER Visits Related to Mental Illness or Drug Use
There should be no doubt that mental illness represents one of the greatest burdens on the American health care system. A recent report published by HCUP (Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project) tells us that 12.5% of ER visits in 2007 (12 million out of 95 million) were related to mental illness or substance abuse. While in many cases these were secondary diagnoses, over 4.1 million visits had mental illness or substance abuse as a first-listed or principal diagnosis. 40% of the 12 million resulted in hospital admission, making ER visits for mental illness and substance abuse 2.5 times more likely to lead to hospitalization than visits for all other conditions.
Two years ago, HCUP published a report about hospital stays related to mental health for the year 2006. 3.4% of all hospital stays (1.35 million out of 39.45 million) had a principal diagnosis of mental illness, with mood disorders and schizophrenia accounting for the overwhelming majority. Also significant is the fact that admissions with a principal diagnosis of a mental health condition had an average length of stay of 8.2 days, considerably longer than the average of 4.6 days for all stays.
Of course these are just a few of the many figures floating in the sea of statistics on the topic, but they seemed worth noting.
Rand Paul: Loud, But Not So Clear
by David on May 23, 2010
Does Ethan Watters Believe Culture Can Cause Mental Illness?
by David on May 19, 2010
Arizona Immigration Debate is America’s Problem
by David on May 12, 2010
Evolutionary Psychology: A Stone Age Mindset
by David on May 3, 2010
Mentalism, Madness, and the Mind
by David on April 27, 2010
Darwin in the English Department?
by David on April 18, 2010
Health Care Reform and Impossible American Ideals
by David on April 8, 2010
Texas Rewrites Textbooks, But Will Kids Even Read Them?
by David on March 27, 2010
Mind of Modernity
12.5 % of ER Visits Related to Mental Illness or Drug Use
There should be no doubt that mental illness represents one of the greatest burdens on the American health care system. A recent report published by HCUP (Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project) tells us that 12.5% of ER visits in 2007 (12 million out of 95 million) were related to mental illness or substance abuse. While [...]
Mind of Modernity
Steven Pinker: Stuck in a Biological Loop
In an op-ed piece published last week in the New York Times, Steven Pinker weighs in on the question of whether technology is dumbing down society. Pinker likens this concern to instances of “moral panic” over new forms of media throughout history, and believes that “far from making us stupid, these technologies are the only [...]
Mind of Modernity
Rand Paul: Loud, But Not So Clear
The day after Dr. Rand Paul, son of congressman Ron Paul and darling of the Tea Party movement, won the republican nomination for senate in Kentucky, he got himself into some trouble on the Rachel Maddow show discussing the piece of the 1964 Civil Rights Act which banned discrimination by private businesses.
part 2 of the [...]
Mind of Modernity
Does Ethan Watters Believe Culture Can Cause Mental Illness?
Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us (see my commentary), was on PRI the other day (listen to the audio here). I was pleased to get a prompt response to my comments, which I’ve copied below. Go here to follow the entire discussion in the PRI science forum.
Mind of Modernity
Arizona Immigration Debate is America’s Problem
Everybody has an opinion about Arizona’s new immigration law. Some have praised it as a reasonable attempt to fix a broken system that the federal government has neglected to deal with. President Obama and California’s legal immigrant Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have cracked jokes. The U.N has raised a critical voice. On Sunday, U.S Attorney General [...]
Exploring modern culture and its effects on the mind