About 15 Percent of Children Received Mental Health Treatment in 2021

Children aged 12 to 17 years were more likely to have received any mental health treatment than those aged 5 to 11 years

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

TUESDAY, June 13, 2023 (HealthDay News) — In 2021, 14.9 percent of children aged 5 to 17 years received mental health treatment, according to a June data brief published by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention National Center for Health Statistics.

Benjamin Zablotsky, Ph.D., and Amanda E. Ng, M.P.H., from the National Center for Health Statistics in Hyattsville, Maryland, used data from the 2021 National Health Interview Survey to describe the percentage of children aged 5 to 17 years who received mental health treatment in the past 12 months.

The researchers found that children aged 12 to 17 years were more likely to have received any mental health treatment (including prescription medication and counseling or therapy) in the past 12 months compared with children aged 5 to 11 years (18.9 versus 11.3 percent). In the past 12 months, boys were more likely than girls to have taken prescription medication for their mental health (9.0 versus 7.3 percent). Compared with children in other race and Hispanic-origin groups, Asian non-Hispanic children were least likely to have received any mental health treatment in the past 12 months. The percentage of children who received any mental health treatment increased as the level of urbanization decreased.

“In 2021, 14.9 percent of children aged 5 to 17 years in the United States received mental health treatment in the past 12 months,” the authors write. “About 8 percent of children took prescription medication for their mental health, and 11.5 percent of children received counseling or therapy from a mental health professional.”