A recent study conducted by the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute has found that significant gaps remain in mental health care access for children across the United States. The research, published on February 16 in JAMA Pediatrics, used data from the U.S. Census Bureau Household Pulse Survey collected between June 2023 and September 2024 to evaluate how families perceive and access mental health services for their children.
The analysis included responses from 173,174 households. According to the findings, one in five households reported a child who needed mental health treatment. Of those, nearly a quarter did not receive any care. Even among families whose children did get treatment, many still faced challenges accessing services.
The study also identified disparities in which families were able to obtain care and which experienced greater difficulties in doing so. These results add to existing evidence that external factors—such as socioeconomic status or location—can affect whether children receive necessary mental health support.
Senior author Hao Yu, associate professor of population medicine at Harvard Medical School and the Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, commented on the findings: "Our analysis provides timely evidence that, despite the increasing awareness of youth mental health needs, access to necessary mental health care remains a challenge for a large number of U.S. households." He added: "Strategies such as child mental health workforce initiatives and integrating mental health care into primary care should be implemented at the state level to remove barriers to this much-needed care."
The authors suggest that targeted policy interventions and increased support for integrated care could help address these ongoing challenges.
