Trends in children’s mental health problems, unmet need, and difficulty accessing care in the United States, 2016–2024 (STATA CODE)
Document Type
Dataset
DOI
https://doi.org/10.32855/dataset.2026.02.050
Production/Collection Date
08/1/2026
Depositor
Genevieve Graaf
Deposit Date
8-12-2026
Data Type
Analytic Code, STATA
Abstract
Background: Children’s mental health needs and access to care in the United States have received increasing attention in recent years, yet national longitudinal evidence remains limited. Existing studies often rely on short observation windows, service utilization alone, or geographically restricted samples and rarely examine differential trends across socio demographic groups. Given recent global events impacting youth mental health and the systems that serve them, comprehensive updated national trend analyses are needed to inform policy and system level responses to the evolving youth mental health landscape. Methods: We analyzed nationally representative data from the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), collected annually from 2016 through 2024, to examine trends in caregiver-reported mental health needs and access to mental health care among U.S. children ages 4–17. Three outcomes were assessed: (1) presence of a mental health problem, (2) unmet need for mental health care, and (3) difficulty accessing mental health services among children with identified need. An interrupted time series (ITS) design was used to model changes in outcome levels and trajectories while accounting for underlying preexisting trends. Analyses were conducted for the full population and stratified by sex, age, race/ethnicity, household income, and insurance status using survey weighted linear probability models. Results: The prevalence of caregiver-reported child mental health problems increased modestly prior to 2020 and then rose sharply beginning in 2020, with continued annual increases through 2024. By contrast, unmet mental health need remained relatively stable at the population level across the study period. Stratified analyses revealed important heterogeneity: unmet need increased among males, preschoolers and adolescents, White non-Hispanic children, and privately insured children and those from higher income households. Significant declines were observed among Black non Hispanic children. Difficulty accessing mental health services increased substantially over time, with marked post 2020 increases across most socio demographic groups. Conclusions: Between 2016 and 2024, children’s mental health needs increased substantially in the United States, while unmet need for mental health services remained relatively stable overall but varied meaningfully across sociodemographic groups. In contrast, caregivers increasingly reported difficulty accessing mental health care, suggesting growing system strain amid rising demand. These findings highlight the importance of distinguishing mental health need, unmet need, and access barriers when assessing equity and system performance. National longitudinal evidence from this study underscores the need for sustained investments in child mental health infrastructure, workforce capacity, and service delivery models that can equitably meet rising mental health needs.
Disciplines
Epidemiology | Mental and Social Health | Psychology | Social Work
Publication Date
Fall 8-14-2026
Language
English
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Graaf, Genevieve PhD, MSW; Huges, Phillip M. PhD, MS; Gigli, Kristin H. PhD, APRN, CPNP-AC; and Thomas, Kathleen C. PhD, MPH, "Trends in children’s mental health problems, unmet need, and difficulty accessing care in the United States, 2016–2024 (STATA CODE)" (2026). Social Work Datasets. 1.
https://mavmatrix.uta.edu/socialwork_datasets2/1
Comments
This work was supported in part by the National Institute of Mental Health of the National Institutes of Health (Award Number 1K01MH129991 and 1R01MH133807 to GG). The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No authors received a salary from any of the funders.