2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health Available

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) released the results of their 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) this past Thursday.  Some of the findings from the survey include:

- In 2009, 19.9 percent of American adults in the United States (45.1 million) experienced mental illness.  Nearly 20 percent (8.9 million) of these adults also had a substance use disorder.

- 11 million adults (4.8 percent) in the U.S. suffered serious mental illness in the past year (with serious mental illness defined as a diagnosable mental disorder that has substantially interfered with, or limited one or more major life activities).  25.7 percent of these adults had a substance use disorder, which is approximately four times the level experienced by people not suffering from serious mental illness (6.5 percent).

- In 2009, less than four in ten (37.9 percent) adults in the U.S. with mental illness received mental health services. Service use was higher for adults with serious mental illness (60.2 percent); however, 4.4 million adults with serious mental illness in the past year did not receive mental health services.

A copy of the full report is accessible here.  For more information about mental health be sure to visit NAMI Southwestern Pennsylvania online and keep up with our blog with a subscription to our RSS feed!


Contributed by Lora M. Dziemiela, Program Secretary