U.S. Adult Mental Illness Surveillance Report

The economic burden of mental illness in the United States is substantial—about $300 billion in 2002. Mental illness is an important public health problem in itself—about 25% of U.S. adults have a mental illness—but also because it is associated with chronic medical diseases such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and obesity. Mental illness surveillance by organizations such as CDC is a critically important part of disease prevention and control.

The CDC report, Mental Illness Surveillance Among Adults in the United States, describes the extent of mental illness among U.S. adults and recommends increased efforts to monitor mental illness and anxiety disorders. Released September 2, 2011, as a supplement to CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), the publication is the result of CDC's first agency-wide compilation of data from selected CDC surveillance and information systems that measure the prevalence and effect of mental illness in the U.S. adult population.