Behavioral health inequities cost the US health care system more than $278 billion

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Inequitable disparities in behavioral health lead to premature death, and in turn, a significant cost burden to the US health care system.

Between 2016 and 2020, the cost burden of premature behavioral health-related deaths in Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities was $278 billion. That new metadata analysis shows that by Sacher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse Medical School (SHLI)..

The analysis also found that during that time frame, the total number of excess mental health and behavioral health-related deaths among Indigenous people and racial and ethnic minority groups was 116,722.

“Investing in mental health care saves lives and dollars – we’ve known this for decades, but until now we didn’t fully understand the enormous impact of neglecting to act,” SHLI Executive Director Daniel Dawes said in a statement. “For the first time, there is concrete evidence of how decades of systemic health inequity have resulted in worse outcomes for racial and ethnic minority, marginalized, and under-resourced populations.

The black community had 57,887 premature behavioral health-related deaths between 2016 and 2020, the highest number of any minority community in the study. In turn, the black community bore the largest total excess cost burden of premature behavioral health-related deaths at $131.6 billion.

The Hispanic/Latinx population accounted for 46,555 premature behavioral health-related deaths. The excess cost of these deaths was $114.5 billion. There were 12,248 premature behavioral health-related deaths among Indigenous peoples, with a total cost burden of $31.9 billion.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and federal surveys use a sampling frame of about 6 million Americans who are in prisons, nursing homes, homeless, active military or in psychiatric facilities, the researchers noted in the analysis.

The costs associated with mental illness and substance use disorders among incarcerated and homeless people are between $63 billion and $92 billion more, researchers report.

“Requires investment in mental and behavioral health infrastructure, funding to expand and train behavioral health workers to better meet the behavioral health needs of historically marginalized communities, expand insurance coverage, and promote equity in both public and private insurance programs. And payment reform, and expanding services and areas of care across the full continuum of behavioral health services,” the report explained.

The report’s authors called for long-term investments in behavioral health systems that support the advancement of health equity. Additionally, researchers are concerned with addressing specific socio-cultural mental health and social health issues.

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