Taking On The Poor Accessibility To Mental Health Care In The State
As it stands, Arkansas is currently ranked 47 out of 51 in mental health treatment. When considering minors that ranking drops to 51. The state has a high prevalence of mental health issues, but fails to provide access to mental health care to deal with these issues. Likewise, the state’s suicide rate has been increasing since 2000 and it is currently in the top ten for suicide rates. In order for Arkansas to improve its standing it needs to better address the factors that lead to suicide before the problem becomes unsolvable. Three possible solutions to this problem are better diagnosing mental illnesses, increasing mental health counseling for students, and reducing access …show more content…
As this knowledge comes, so does the possibility of new treatments and better ways to manage the effects of mental illness. That being said, in many places mental health is not treated with the same importance as physical health. As of current, the state of Arkansas is one of the poorest ranked states in concern with mental health. According to the Suicidology website, the state has a rate of 19.4 suicides per 100,000 people, a number that is well above the national average of 13.8.This rate is also higher than the regional rate of 14.0. There are several different factors influencing this number. Stress is a large influence in this issue, especially stress because of the poor economy and stress about education. Another is the lack of gun regulation since “some studies that suggest that suicide rates are higher in states with few or no gun regulations” (Decade Long Rise para 2). Regardless of the cause, there needs to be more solutions in place to reduce the destruction of the effects. It is imperative that the state starts looking for ways to address the issue with the mental health care system, especially since suicide rates, as well as the rates for other destructive behaviors continues to grow in the …show more content…
Most schools have counselors in place, but many of those counselors are more so there for academic counseling and not emotional counseling. While they may be able to help a lot of students, there is still a large portion of students whose problems they cannot accurately treat. This combined with the issues many students have which are listed above provides solid reasoning for placing trained personnel in schools to help remedy the problem. Because students and parents are not footing the bill this makes it automatically easier to get treatment, especially in a state whose poverty rate means that a lot of people do not have healthcare that covers mental health. It becomes easier for students to invest in their mental health when they have more access to resources that they can access when it is more convenient for them. It is this, providing resources for treatment, that is going to help solve the problem. By placing healthcare within reach, it becomes so much easier to treat the problem, which is the goal of all of the preventative
As it stands, Arkansas is currently ranked 47 out of 51 in mental health treatment. When considering minors that ranking drops to 51. The state has a high prevalence of mental health issues, but fails to provide access to mental health care to deal with these issues. Likewise, the state’s suicide rate has been increasing since 2000 and it is currently in the top ten for suicide rates. In order for Arkansas to improve its standing it needs to better address the factors that lead to suicide before the problem becomes unsolvable. Three possible solutions to this problem are better diagnosing mental illnesses, increasing mental health counseling for students, and reducing access …show more content…
As this knowledge comes, so does the possibility of new treatments and better ways to manage the effects of mental illness. That being said, in many places mental health is not treated with the same importance as physical health. As of current, the state of Arkansas is one of the poorest ranked states in concern with mental health. According to the Suicidology website, the state has a rate of 19.4 suicides per 100,000 people, a number that is well above the national average of 13.8.This rate is also higher than the regional rate of 14.0. There are several different factors influencing this number. Stress is a large influence in this issue, especially stress because of the poor economy and stress about education. Another is the lack of gun regulation since “some studies that suggest that suicide rates are higher in states with few or no gun regulations” (Decade Long Rise para 2). Regardless of the cause, there needs to be more solutions in place to reduce the destruction of the effects. It is imperative that the state starts looking for ways to address the issue with the mental health care system, especially since suicide rates, as well as the rates for other destructive behaviors continues to grow in the …show more content…
Most schools have counselors in place, but many of those counselors are more so there for academic counseling and not emotional counseling. While they may be able to help a lot of students, there is still a large portion of students whose problems they cannot accurately treat. This combined with the issues many students have which are listed above provides solid reasoning for placing trained personnel in schools to help remedy the problem. Because students and parents are not footing the bill this makes it automatically easier to get treatment, especially in a state whose poverty rate means that a lot of people do not have healthcare that covers mental health. It becomes easier for students to invest in their mental health when they have more access to resources that they can access when it is more convenient for them. It is this, providing resources for treatment, that is going to help solve the problem. By placing healthcare within reach, it becomes so much easier to treat the problem, which is the goal of all of the preventative