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The percentage of young U.S. adults receiving mental health treatment increased by nearly 5% from 2019 to 2021, according to National Health Interview Survey data.

Overall, the proportion of adults receiving mental health treatment -- defined as receiving counseling, therapy, taking a medication, or any combination of the three -- increased from 19.2% in 2019 to 21.6% by 2021, reported Emily P. Terlizzi, MPH, and Jeannine S. Schiller, MPH, of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in Hyattsville, Maryland.

However, this appeared to be driven by an uptick in mental health treatment for younger adults between the ages of 18 and 44, whose rates of mental health treatment jumped from 18.5% in 2019 to 23.2% in 2021.

" has found that symptoms of an anxiety disorder or a depressive disorder increased from 2020 through the beginning of 2021, especially among younger adults," the researchers wrote.

Treatment rates appeared to hold steady for adults ages 45 to 64 (20.2% vs 21.2%) and those 65 and older (19.4% vs 18.9%).

The also found that women were far more likely to seek and receive mental health treatment compared with men at all time points over the past few years:

• 2019: 13.1% of men vs 23.8% of women

• 2020: 15.8% of men vs 26% of women

• 2021: 17.8% of men vs 28.6% of women

When the data were broken down by race, non-Hispanic white adults were far more likely to receive any type of mental health treatment in recent years (23.8% in 2019 and 30.4% in 2021). On the other hand, the rates were lowest for Asian adults across all years, but nearly doubled from 6% in 2019 to 10.8% in 2021. Mental health treatment rates fluctuated a bit for Black adults, from a nadir of 12.4% in 2019 and peaking at 17% in 2020 before dropping back down a bit to 14.8% by 2021. Hispanic adults saw relatively steady rates of mental health treatment across the past few years, of 11.7% in 2019 and 12.8% in 2021.

Urbanicity didn't appear to play too much of a role in terms of mental health treatment access, as rates significantly increased in recent years across all metropolitan types. The rates were highest for residents of nonmetropolitan areas (20% in 2019 vs 25.2% in 2021), but were also fairly high for residents of medium or small metropolitan areas (21.1% vs 24.6%) and large metropolitan areas (16.8% vs 22.2%).

Mental health treatment was defined as taking a medication for feelings of anxiety or depression or to help with any other emotions or with their concentration, behavior, or mental health, or receiving counseling or therapy from a mental health professional within the prior 12 months.

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