Adult Frequent Mental Distress by County, New Mexico, 2021
Indicator Report Data View Options
Why Is This Important?
Adult mental health issues range in a spectrum from day-to-day challenges with stress, anxiety, and "the blues", to persistent mental health challenges arising from chronic physical conditions such as diabetes, asthma, and obesity. to chronic clinically-diagnosable psychiatric morbidities such as anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression, to serious life-threatening situations such as suicidal ideation and suicide attempt, which sometimes result from a combination of the mental and physical health challenges mentioned above. A host of measures exist for assessing the mental health status of individuals, but characterizing the mental health status of the population is a relatively new field. If such an assessment can be done using a simple and non-invasive approach with a reasonable level of sensitivity and specificity, the resulting characterization of the population's mental health can help public health and mental health professionals better understand the distribution of mental health issues in the population and design better systems to help identify, address and mitigate these issues before they become more serious. Among measures that have been suggested by the CDC as potential tools for assessing population well-being and mental health is the frequency with which people experience poor mental health. This measure is based on the single question, "How many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good?" Respondents who report that they experienced 14 or more days when their mental health was "not good" were classified as experiencing "Frequent Mental Distress" ("FMD"). Although FMD is not a clinical diagnosis, evidence suggests that it is associated with a person's mental health status. A 2011 study by Bossarte et al. concluded that 6 or more days of poor mental health ("Mental Distress") could be used as a valid and reliable indicator of generalized mental distress with strong associations to both diagnosable depressive symptomology and serious mental illness.
Adult Frequent Mental Distress by County, New Mexico, 2021
Definition
Percentage of NM residents 18 years or older experiencing "Mental Distress", defined as answering 6 days or more to the question, "Now thinking about your mental health, which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions, for how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health NOT good?" These data are from the NM Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), a random-digit-dialed telephone survey of adults 18 years and older. It is conducted annually by the NM Department of Health Survey Unit in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Responses are weighted to reflect the general New Mexico adult population by age, sex, ethnicity, geographic region, marital status, education level, home ownership and type of phone ownership.
Data Notes
(#) Values are unstable (**) Data suppressed due to small numbers The county-level BRFSS data used for this indicator report were weighted to be representative of the New Mexico Health Region populations. Had the data been weighted to be representative of each county population, the results may have been different.Data Source
Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Survey Data, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, together with New Mexico Department of Health, Injury and Behavioral Epidemiology Bureau.(https://www.nmhealth.org/about/erd/ibeb/brfss/)
How the Measure is Calculated
| Numerator: | The number of survey respondents who reported "Mental Distress", defined as poor mental health for 6 or more of the past 30 days. |
| Denominator: | Total number of survey respondents except those with missing, "Don't know/Not sure," and "Refused" responses. |
Data Issues
The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) is an ongoing survey of adults about health-related behaviors, health conditions, and preventive services. Data are collected in all 50 states, D.C., and U.S. territories. The survey is conducted using scientific telephone survey methods for landline and cellular phones (with cellular since 2011). The landline phone portion of the survey excludes adults living in group quarters such as college dormitories, nursing homes, military barracks, and prisons. The cellular phone portion of the survey includes adult students living in college dormitories but excludes other group quarters. Beginning with 2011, the BRFSS updated its surveillance methods by adding in calls to cell phones and changing its weighting methods. These changes improve BRFSS' ability to take into account the increasing proportion of U.S. adults using only cellular telephones. Because of these changes, the data from years prior to 2011 are not directly comparable to data from 2011 and later. Please see the [[a href="/nmibis-view/docs/Query/BRFSS/BRFSS_fact_sheet_Aug2012.pdf BRFSS Method Change Factsheet]]. Responses have been weighted to reflect the New Mexico adult population by age, sex, ethnicity, geographic region, marital status, education level, home ownership and type of phone. The "missing" and "don't know" responses are not included when calculating a percentage.Health Topic Pages Related to: Mental Health - Adult Self-reported Mental Distress
Community Health Resources and Links
- Healthy People 2030 Website
- The Guide to Community Preventive Services
- U.S. Preventive Services Task Force
- County Health Rankings
- Kaiser Family Foundation's StateHealthFacts
Medical literature can be queried at the PubMed website.