Infographic Blog Post- Ana Soler
By: Ana Soler
Tags: Journalism, Infographics, Vic4001, Mental Health

Data Source: https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/cbhsq-reports/NSDUHDetailedTabs2017/NSDUHDetailedTabs2017.htm#tab9-2B

Data Chart on Google Sheets: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1aKPpLQgtM9KC1ZWNuBNgxwpscfHhGh9JfiPQtS4zdT4/edit?usp=sharing

The data from the chart is from a 2017 survey from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Association about different mental health services and what percentage of different ages, races/ethnicities, and genders of adolescents that responded the survey. The age groups are separated as 12–13, 14–15, and 16–17. The races/ethnicities were listed as not Hispanic or Latino, White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, Two or More Races, and Hispanic or Latino.

The services were separated into 2 categories: Specialty and Non-Specialty. Those categories are separated into subcategories. For Specialty, there’s outpatient (meaning therapy that is done routinely for a specific period of time) and inpatient or residential (therapy that is a longer stay, even overnight especially from a mental hospital). For Non-Specialty, there’s education (therapy done through school or a behavioral program in an education institute), general medicine (therapy done through a family doctor of some kind), juvenile justice (therapy through a prison of some kind, like a juvenile detention center), and child welfare (therapy received in foster care).

What I got from the data is that when it comes to specialty mental health services, the percentages of whites, mixed races, and non-Hispanics are much higher than minorities like Hispanics/Latinos, Asians, and Black/African Americans. That makes sense to me because in the culture of those minorities, therapy is seen as something only for “crazy” people. It is very much a cliché in the communities, compared to whites. The thing that confused me a bit was that the highest percentage was mixed race teenagers, which is interesting. I think there should be a specific methodology to how many people did they interview were mixed race and what that the two or more races of the students are. For non-specialty, it is the opposite: minorities have a higher percentage, since those programs (schools, foster care, and prison programs) are more affordable and sometimes they aren’t something voluntary that you choose like the specialty programs are.

I also got from the age portion that the older teenagers (16–17) are more inclined to go to therapy than younger teenagers (12–15), especially with specialized services. What’s interesting is the youngest teenager group (12–13) sometimes have larger percentages when it comes to non-specialized services.

Lastly, when it comes to gender, females have a larger percentage than males and it keeps increasing as opposed to the decreasing male percentages for both specialty and non-specialty services.

All in all, the percentages are very low, with the largest percentage in the whole chart being only 20% so I can see that so little of respondents actually seek mental health services which should change because mental health in teens is a very big problem in our society especially when it comes to anxiety, depression, eating disorders, etc.

Infographics (Photos Below):