SAN FRANCISCO (KCBS RADIO) – A new report shows California is grappling with one of the country's largest increases in childhood anxiety and depression amid a national youth mental health crisis exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
California experienced a 70% increase among children with anxiety and depression between 2016 and 2020, according to the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s 2022 "KIDS COUNT Data Book" published on Monday. Only South Dakota (102.9%) experienced a larger increase in those four years, the advocacy group's analysis showed.
The group examined the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' National Survey of Children's Health in 2016 and 2020, finding that anxiety and depression among children aged 3-17 increased 25.5% during those four years.
Nearly 12% of California children in 2020 experienced anxiety or depression, compared to 11.8% of children nationally. In 2016, those figures were 7% and 9.4%, respectively.
Monday's report came eight months after the U.S. Surgeon General issued an advisory centered on American children’s mental health crisis. Dr. Vivek Murthy said at the time that the "future wellbeing of our country depends on how we support and invest in the next generation."
Last week, California Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond announced a plan for the state to hire 10,000 additional school counselors in the next few years, up from the 10,602 the American School Counselor Association said were employed in the state during the 2020-21 school year.
"This is an important moment," Thurmond said last week in a release. "Our students deserve and need to have more support, and we're grateful to have resources that we can use to help them."
With more than 6 million students enrolled that year, California had a counselor-to-student ratio of 572-1. The American School Counselor Association recommends a 250-1 ratio. Based on California's 2021-22 enrollment data, the state would need to hire around 13,000 more counselors to reach that ratio.
California children contended with some of the strictest COVID-19 measures in 2020, with the vast majority of students ending the 2019-20 school year and beginning the following one away from their classrooms. Yet state-level increases didn't correlate neatly with the forcefulness of the public health response to the pandemic.
For instance, Arkansas (67.4%), the District of Columbia (58.1%), South Carolina (55.4%) and Massachusetts (50.8%) all experienced increases greater than 50%.
A lower percentage of California children also experienced anxiety or depression in 2020 than in Oregon (16.1%) and Washington (15.1%) – two other Democratic-led members of the Western States Pact that coordinated the rollback of pandemic-related business restrictions – while a higher percentage did than in New York (10.7%) and New Jersey (10.9%).
The Casey Foundation's analysis found that rates of anxiety and depression increased among children of all ethnic groups. Mixed-race (13.2%), white (13.3%) and American Indian or Alaska Native children (15%) experienced anxiety and depression above the national average.
Follow KNX News 97.1 FM
Twitter | Facebook | Instagram | TikTok
Related
Related
