Crafting Crisis

A little over 5% of all emergency department visits (5,215 of 100,000 visits) in the U.S. were for mental health issues. And these visits vary by both consumer age and diagnosis, according to new data—Mental Health-Related Emergency Department Visits—released by the Centers for Disease Control for March 2026.

Most of the mental health emergency room visits are for anxiety (4% of the total). This is followed by depression (3%), bipolar disorder (1%), schizophrenia spectrum disorders (0.8%), and trauma (0.6%).

The highest rate of mental health-related emergency department visits was among youth . . .