Utah ranks among the top 10 states to live in for happiness and mental health

Many factors influence your mental health, but have you considered the important role geography can play?

The mental health crisis in the United States is taking a toll on different populations across the country, for many reasons. Healthcare staffing company Soliant Health has released its research and ranking of US states from best to worst for happiness and mental health in 2023.

Here are the top 10 best states to live in when it comes to mental health:

1. Nebraska.
2. Connecticut.
3. Massachusetts.
4. Minnesota.
5. Rhode Island.
6. New Jersey.
7. Vermont.
8. Colorado.
9. North Dakota.
10. Utah.

To determine where each state fell in the rankings, researchers looked at factors such as the number of mental health providers available in the area, suicide rates (ages 15 to 25), frequency at which people were having bad days in terms of mental health, unemployment rates and violent crime. Other factors, including air pollution and exercise, have also been studied.

West Virginia ranked 50th, with the highest average number of poor mental health days reported by residents in the past 30 days, followed by Alabama and then Arkansas, according to the research.

Effect of socio-economic status on mental health

Mental health problems can interact in complex ways with social problems.

According to Axios, addressing the root causes of mental and behavioral health crises will require considering a wide range of socioeconomic and health factors and, in many cases, will involve addressing much broader societal inequities .

Low-income communities often face increased mental health challenges due to a complex interaction of individual, societal, economic, and systemic factors.

Receiving less education correlates with a person’s likelihood of experiencing a potential drug overdose in their lifetime, according to a study published in the JAMA Network.

As the opioid crisis has shifted to fentanyl and polysubstance use, overdose deaths have become more common among lower socioeconomic status groups, potentially exacerbating existing disparities in life expectancy, according to the study.

The American Addiction Center reported that about 22% of people with anxiety disorders self-medicate with drugs or alcohol to cope with their symptoms.

To what extent are young people at risk?

Soliant Health’s report indicates that disconnected youth play a significant role in each state’s rankings.

Disconnected young people are at increased risk of developing poor mental health, with increased risks of violence, alcohol, drug use and emotional deficits, the report said.

Adding that this correlation is further supported by several studies showing that disconnected youth will experience increased rates of unemployment, poverty and mental health disorders.

Disconnected youth include children who are homeless, in foster care, involved in the justice system, or who are not employed or enrolled in an educational institution, and represent approximately 6.7 million of the youth population aged 14 to 24 years, according to the United Nations. States Department of Agriculture.

Disconnected youth not only struggle to gain personal support, but also pose economic and political challenges to society when they do not realize their potential as active contributors.

This may result from their increased likelihood of relying on government assistance and their potential involvement in criminal behavior.

Six of the 10 states with the lowest rates of disconnected youth earned a spot in the top 10 best states for mental health, according to Soliant Health.

How does healthcare help?

Donald J. Parker, president of Behavioral Health Transformation Services at Hackensack Meridian Health, told Fox News that more efforts need to be implemented in schools to help teach young people how to cope and strengthen their health mentally from the start.

Our hospital network recently launched a collaboration with the Society for Adolescent Suicide Prevention to train 2,000 of our nurses to identify signs of potential suicidal behavior when children arrive at our emergency rooms and provide them with appropriate appropriate services to prevent self-harm. , Parker said.

Adding to this, the idea, which is gaining more and more ground in mental health care, is to take a more holistic approach to mental health, instead of being purely reactive.

If you or someone you know is in crisis, please contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis lifeline by calling or texting 988 or chat online at 988lifeline.org.