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Mental Illness

Mental illnesses are biological brain disorders that can critically interfere with a person’s ability to think, feel and relate to other people and the environment.

Mental illness is a commonly occurring disability in the United States. According to a 1988 study entitled “One Month Prevalence of Mental Disorders in the U.S.,” perhaps one-third of the population will experience mental illness at one time in their lives. And, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, in any given year about 5 million Americans will have a form of mental illness — it is more common than diabetes, cancer or heart disease.

For many years, children were not thought to experience mental illness because they did not have to confront the stresses that adults face. Research now indicates, however, that children do have depression and anxiety disorders. The Research & Training Center at Portland State University in Oregon estimates that nearly 12 percent of the 63 million children in the United States have mental illnesses.

In a disability statistics report by the University of California, Institute for Health and Aging, mental illness is not considered a physically restricting condition, although it is ranked ninth out of 67 chronic health conditions for causing activity limitation. The causes of mental illness are not known, but mental health professionals believe these disorders are due to a combination of biological, psychological and environmental factors.

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