America’s Youth Mental Health Crisis

Young people in the U.S. face an unprecedented mental health crisis. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated rates of depression, anxiety and suicide among adolescents that were already at historically high levels before the pandemic. Since 2020, mental health-related emergency room visits have increased 31% among adolescents while suicide rates among teenagers increased 25%.

President Biden acknowledged the severity of this crisis when he introduced a national, five-year initiative to tackle the nation’s mental health crisis. This conversation will explore how the mental health community is overcoming barriers to treatment and the state of federal, state, and local policy interventions.

Discussants:

• Edward M. Emmett, Fellow in Energy and Transportation Policy, Baker Institute
• Rola El-Serag, M.D., L.E., and Virginia Simmons Senior Fellow in Health Policy, Director of the Center for Health & Biosciences, Baker Institute for Public Policy
• Lilian Dindo, Ph.D., Nonresident Fellow, Baker Institute for Public Policy; Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine; Research Health Scientist, Houston Michael Debakey VA Medical Center; Licensed clinical psychologist.
• Jan Lindsay, Ph.D., Nonresident Fellow, Baker Institute for Public Policy; Licensed Psychologist, Center for Innovations in Quality, Effectiveness, and Safety, Michael E. DeBakey Veterans Affairs Medical Center; Associate Professor, Baylor College of Medicine; and Co-Director of the South Central Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Center

About Baker Briefing

Baker Briefing is a podcast that tackles the most critical foreign and domestic policy issues of the day in conversations with experts at the Baker Institute. Hosted by the Honorable David M. Satterfield, director of the Baker Institute, new episodes are released weekly.

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Each episode of Baker Briefing is recorded in front of a live audience at Rice University in Houston, Texas. You can attend live recordings by joining the Baker Roundtable, the Baker Institute’s membership forum.