Tallying Mental Illness' Costs (Time Magazine)

Serious mental illnesses (SMIs), which afflict about 6% of American adults, cost society $193.2 billion in lost earnings per year, according to findings published in this month's American Journal of Psychiatry. Surveying data from nearly 5,000 participants, researchers determined that people suffering from a SMI — defined as a range of mood and anxiety disorders, including suicidal tendencies, that significantly impaired a person's ability to function for at least 30 days over the past year — earned at least 40% less than people in good mental health. "The results of this study confirm the belief that mental disorders contribute to enormous losses of human productivity," says Ronald Kessler, a Harvard professor of health care policy and lead author of the study, funded by the National Institute of Mental Health. . . . . "Each year the economic cost of untreated mental illness is staggering — over $100 billion on untreated mental health disorders and $400 billion on addiction disorders," Sullivan said. "Our country cannot afford to continue losing $500 billion a year to these treatable diseases."