Kansas Improves on Mental Health

Mental Health America ranked Kansas No. 22 nationally in 2024 for overall mental health. That’s a significant improvement from last year, when it ranked Kansas 51st out of 50 states and the District of Columbia. Rankings were given for specific categories of adult, youth, prevalence data, access to care and overall rank.

Kansas had lower prevalence of mental health and substance use issues compared with other states (19th lowest nationally). The measures used for this ranking include adults with any mental illness, adults or youth with substance use disorder in the past year, adults or youth with serious thoughts of suicide, and youth with at least one major depressive episode in the past year.

Kansas still ranked low for access to care (35th), but that was better than last year (48th). Measures include access to insurance, access to treatment, quality and cost of insurance, access to special education, and mental health workforce availability.

The new Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Fellowship at KUSM-W is increasing access to care, as will the new psychiatric hospital in Sedgwick County, which is expected to open in 2027.

Another recent report showed a decline in death by suicide among children. The state’s Child Death Review Board reported there were 21 deaths by suicide among those under age 18 in Kansas in 2022. That’s down from 29 the year before and the lowest total since 2018.

The Kansas Health Institute also reported recently that there was a significant increase in contacts with the 988 suicide crisis hotline. Phone calls, texts and chats totaled 39,096 from August 2023 to July 2024, about a third more than the previous year.