\t\t\t\t\tQuickTake:<\/p>\n
Over the past few years, Oregon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to improve access to mental health services, and the reports show that access to care in the state has been improving.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
As one of her key campaign promises, Gov. Tina Kotek committed herself to battling the state\u2019s persistent mental health challenges. A recent report suggests there is still much work to do.<\/p>\n
More Oregonians struggle with mental health issues than ever before, according to Mental Health America\u2019s newly released 2025 annual report<\/a> \u2014 30% of the state\u2019s adult population.<\/p>\n That study also ranks Oregonians, both youth and adults, as having the highest prevalence of mental health challenges among residents of the 50 states and the District of Columbia.<\/p>\n Oregon residents have had the highest prevalence of mental illness for years. In the past few years, however, the state has devoted hundreds of millions of dollars to improve access to mental health services.<\/p>\n The money is making some difference. The state ranked seventh for access to care in the new report, up from 21st five years ago.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are seeing the benefit of these investments, but we have more work to do,\u201d Gov. Kotek said in a statement.<\/p>\n Katie McLaughlin, a University of Oregon psychology professor<\/a> and executive director of the Ballmer Institute<\/a> for Children\u2019s Behavioral Health, is particularly concerned about the mental health challenges of Oregon\u2019s youth.<\/p>\n \u201cThe root causes of youth mental health challenges \u2014 like exposure to trauma and adversity \u2014 are not improving in the state,\u201d McLaughlin said.<\/p>\n Oregon has been above the national average in prevalence of mental health issues since at least 2015, according to archived reports from Mental Health America.<\/a> Oregon\u2019s current rate of 30% is significantly higher than the national rate of 23%.<\/p>\n Dr. George Keepers, chair of Oregon Health & Science University\u2019s Department of Psychiatry for more than 20 years, argues that Oregon\u2019s fragmented mental health system shares some of the blame<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe county is the mental health authority in Oregon,\u201d Keepers said in an interview last year.\u00a0 \u201cWhat happens is, counties decide what\u2019s going to happen within their jurisdiction, and that can be wildly different from one place to another.\u201d<\/p>\n He prefers the Massachusetts model, which administers the delivery of care statewide, designing programs with best practices and requiring insurance companies to reimburse for certain kinds of behavioral care. That state ranks sixth for mental health well-being, the 2025 report<\/a> shows.<\/p>\n \u201cAs a result of the powers they have, they are able to create coordinated systems of care that are very efficient and very effective,\u201d Keepers said. \u201cNow, that\u2019s very different from Oregon with the Oregon Health Authority<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"QuickTake: Over the past few years, Oregon has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to try to improve…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[49,48,84,393,394,12721],"class_list":{"0":"post-229039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth","13":"tag-premium"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}