Black Americans more likely to go to emergency departments for mental health care: CDC

Black adults are nearly twice as likely to visit an ER for mental health reasons than White Americans.

by Alejandra O’Connell-Domenech | Mar. 01, 2023

FILE – In this July 30, 2009 photo, patients wait in the emergency room at Cook County Hospital, one of Chicago’s safety net hospitals. (AP Photo/Paul Beaty, file)

Story at a glance

A new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that Black adults are more likely to go an emergency room for mental health reasons than white or Hispanic adults.

The report comes as the country grapples with a mental health crisis in part stemming from hardships imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

About one in five U.S. adults are living with a mental health disorder, the CDC estimates.

Black Americans visit emergency rooms for mental health issues at nearly twice the national average, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The report looked at almost 6,000 mental health-related emergency room visits between 2018 and 2020 and found that Black Americans had the highest rate with 96.8 visits per 1,000 people.

Meanwhile, on average there were 53 emergency room visits per 1,000 people per year for mental health issues like anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and substance use disorders.

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White Americans visited emergency rooms at a rate of 53.4 per 1,000 people while Hispanics visited ERs at an even lower rate — 36.0 per 1,000 people.

The report also found that the rates of emergency room visits declined as patient age increased.

Black and Hispanic adults between the ages of 18-44 were the most likely to go to an emergency room for a mental health issue.

And a higher percentage of mental health emergency room visits among Black adults took place in the South.

The CDC estimates that 1 in every 5 adults lived with a mental health disorder in 2020 but less than half of those with a mental health issue received treatment that year.

Those odds are even lower among Black and Latino adults.

As the U.S. grapples with a mental health crisis, the Biden administration is trying to connect more people with care.