The U.S. mental health decline has affected every demographic since COVID-19, though Hispanic Americans report smaller drops than other groups, Gallup data shows.
Americans’ assessments of their own mental health continue to deteriorate. For the first time, the percentage of U.S. adults who describe their mental health as “excellent” has dropped below 30%. Just six years ago, before the COVID-19 pandemic, 43% rated their mental health this positively.
In addition to the 29% who now say their mental health is excellent, 43% describe it as good. The combined 72% rating their mental health as excellent or good is also a low by three percentage points.
These results are based on the Nov. 3-25 West Health-Gallup Healthcare survey.
The COVID-19 pandemic appears to have been a turning point in the way Americans view their mental health. Before the pandemic, people’s evaluations of their mental health were quite stable, with 42% or more rating their mental health as excellent in every year from 2001 through 2019. The rating fell nine points to 34% in Gallup’s November 2020 update, conducted about eight months after the pandemic began in the U.S.
Americans’ self-reported mental health has worsened since 2019 among all major demographic subgroups. This is based on a comparison of 2014-2019 data (the six years before the pandemic) to 2020-2025 data (the six years since the pandemic began). However, younger generations of adults and college graduates have shown larger declines than older Americans and those with less formal education.
Specifically, over the past six years, the percentage of Generation Z and millennial adults who report excellent mental health has declined by about 15 points in each group. That compares with an 11-point decline for Generation X adults and smaller drops among baby boomers and Silent Generation adults. On average over the past six years, 23% of Gen Z and 28% of millennial adults rated their mental health as excellent, compared with no less than 34% of those in older generations.
College graduates’ excellent mental health ratings are 17 points lower than in the 2014-2019 period, compared with a 10-point decline among those without a college degree. Whereas college graduates used to have significantly better mental health ratings than nongraduates, the two have been much more similar in recent years.
Declines in mental health ratings have been about the same size among men and women. Among racial and ethnic groups, the declines have been greater for White and Black Americans than for Hispanic Americans. Democrats have had a smaller decline than Republicans and independents.
As Americans’ self-reported mental health has deteriorated, their efforts to seek help have increased. Twenty-four percent of U.S. adults say they have visited a mental health professional in the past year, including 8% who did so more than 10 times. The average number of visits among all U.S. adults is 3.2, up sharply from 1.1 in 2001 and 1.5 in 2004.
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