# Given any random group of Americans, how many will be mentally ill at any given time? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 8, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907 "2016-10-08T04:16:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/1 "2016-10-08T04:16:03Z")
The title should speak for itself but I can elaborate. If you just picked a random group of people using the best processes available excluding no adults, what is the percentage of people that are not fully functioning at a normal level at any given time? That includes people with serious addition issues ranging from hard drugs and alcohol, active mental issues like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression as well as people with much more rare psychiatric disorders. My guess is that is well over 10% but I do not know that. Addiction, schizophrenia and biploar disorder account for multiple percentage points on their own because they are somewhat common but the myriad of others have to ad significantly to the total. If I took, 1,000,000 people and had them professionally evaluated, what percentage would have a genuine psychiatric diagnosis by an objective standard? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/2 "2016-10-08T05:08:14Z")
> **[Nearly 1 in 5 Americans Suffers From Mental Illness Each Year - Newsweek](https://www.newsweek.com/nearly-1-5-americans-suffer-mental-illness-each-year-230608)** > > New Jersey had the lowest rates of overall and severe mental illness, while Utah had the highest > [@](#): > > Every year, about 42.5 million American adults (or 18.2 percent of the total adult population in the United States) suffers from some mental illness, enduring conditions such as depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, statistics released Friday reveal. However a lot of people are still functional with mental illnesses. I’m surprised the human race has made it so far sometimes. With all the illnesses we can get, the fact that we still have enough healthy people to get a working civilization to keep going is surprising sometimes. ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/3 "2016-10-08T05:15:18Z")
Thanks Wesley, that is pretty scary although I know that many of them can be functional at any give time. ---
**Author:** ![cerberus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/71e660/32.png) [@cerberus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cerberus)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/4 "2016-10-08T07:11:32Z")
[NIHM US Prevalence AMI](https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/statistics/prevalence/any-mental-illness-ami-among-us-adults.shtml) ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/5 "2016-10-08T14:00:53Z")
Do you mean the number who have been clinically diagnosed as mentally ill, or those who could potentially be if examined? ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 2:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/6 "2016-10-08T14:53:26Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Thanks Wesley, that is pretty scary although I know that many of them can be functional at any give time. The majority of the mentally ill are people with depression or anxiety. However, it is my understanding that about 1-4% of people suffer from a random cluster A, B, C, D illnesses. When you add them up, it starts to become a big number. There are 4 different cluster B illnesses, if each one has 2% of people with them (assuming no overlap) that is 8% of people with just the cluster B. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2016, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/7 "2016-10-08T14:56:44Z")
According to the people who sell psychotropic drugs, at least 100%. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2016, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/8 "2016-10-10T00:17:09Z")
> [@Shagnasty](#): > > Given any random group of Americans, how many will be mentally ill at any given time? Between 0 and 319 million people, depending on how you define “mentally ill”. > [@](#): > > The title should speak for itself Not really but… > [@](#): > > but I can elaborate. If you just picked a random group of people using the best processes available excluding no adults, what is the percentage of people that are not fully functioning at a normal level at any given time? That’s a considerably more useful question than “how many are mentally ill?”, but it’s still going to be difficult to operationalize. • Is “normal” healthy? I hold that it is not, which jeopardizes the usefulness of your question. As stated, people whose functioning is a significant improvement over normative/typical, — normative/typical being what I mean by “normal” when I say “normal” — would be dumped into the same category as people whose functioning is considerably _below_ normative/typical. • Does it need to be discernable? Most of the time that people’s cognitive and emotional states are significantly different from typical, it isn’t apparent to the people around them. People tend to skew their estimates and evaluations of what’s going on in the heads of other people, perceiving them as being more like themselves than they actually are. And people whose thoughts and feelings are atypical of the people they are surrounded by tend to be somewhat private about it, although they may or may not be in a position to hide or mask it > [@](#): > > That includes people with serious addition issues ranging from hard drugs and alcohol, active mental issues like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and major depression as well as people with much more rare psychiatric disorders. > > My guess is that is well over 10% but I do not know that. For all that I quarrel with the wording of your question, 10% seems about right for me using my own interpretation. > [@](#): > > If I took, 1,000,000 people and had them professionally evaluated, what percentage would have a genuine psychiatric diagnosis by an objective standard? Virtually none, insofar as no objective standard for such an evaluation exists for most of the categories you’re describing. Yes, you can test for drug (and perhaps alcohol) addiction, and for some endocrinological disorders that affect the mind, but you can’t test a person for enzymes in their blood that show they have schizophrenia. Most of the so-called “mental illnesses” have no biological markers and therefore all such diagnoses are made on the basis of behavior alone, which is most certainly not objective by any stretch of the imagination. ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2016, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/9 "2016-10-10T00:49:55Z")
Behavior cannot be objectively described by either a patient or a psychiatrist? I’ve heard the DSM called many things, but “not objective by any stretch of the imagination” is a little over the top. [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Wiki, [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diagnostic_and_Statistical_Manual_of_Mental_Disorders) ---
**Author:** ![coffeecat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coffeecat/32/3405_2.png) [@coffeecat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coffeecat)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2016, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/10 "2016-10-10T01:29:58Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Behavior cannot be objectively described by either a patient or a psychiatrist? [Yes.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenhan_experiment)The observer’s own biases can get in the way. Is the patient hostile or the doctor offensive? ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2016, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/given-any-random-group-of-americans-how-many-will-be-mentally-ill-at-any-given-time/767907/11 "2016-10-10T02:04:07Z")
Forget it. Biases have been addressed, as objectively as anything else, in the medicine of psychiatry, and their possible definitions and limits. Yup. Medicine is not an analytical science.