Mental Health Care Disparities Among Youths Vary by State

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Vol. VII, No. 6
October 2004
HCFO

Only a minority of U.S. children and adolescents who need mental health care are receiving mental health services. Such discrepancies in care appear to vary significantly on a state-by-state basis, according to new HCFO-sponsored research, and the differences across states are not explained by sociodemographic characteristics such as race and income. Roland Sturm, Ph.D., and Jeanne Ringel, Ph.D., both at RAND, recently completed a study examining differences in mental health need and services use among children and adolescents across 13 states.