Since the 1990s, there has been talk of a mental-health epidemic in the U.S., particularly among young people. The mass shootings last month in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y., carried out by 18-year-old gunmen, have heightened fears that something’s gone horribly wrong. But the problem isn’t new. American psychiatrists have been studying rates of functional mental illness, such as depressive disorders and schizophrenia, since the 1840s. These studies show that the ratio of those suffering from such diseases to the mentally healthy population has been consistently rising.
Ten years ago, based on the annual Healthy Minds studyof college students, 1 in 5 college students was dealing with mental illness. Between 2013 and 2021, according to Healthy Minds, the share of U.S. college students affected by depression surged 135%. During the same period, the share of students afflicted by any psychiatric illness doubled to more than 40%. “America’s youth,” wrote journalist Neal Freyman in April, “are in the midst of a spiking mental health crisis, and public health experts are racing to identify the root causes before it gets even worse.”