About Mental Health Awareness Month
May is Mental Health Awareness Month – the month that Americans have designated as a time to be mindful of mental health – and 2026 is the 10th anniversary of the first official federal recognition of Mental Health Awareness Month in 2016. In our profession, we are (hopefully!) aware of many mental health issues on a daily basis, but this month is a good opportunity to be mindful of how mental health issues are perceived by others – not just by our patients, clients, and students, but also by the public at large. At any given time, around 23% to 26% of adults in the U.S. have a diagnosable mental illness – that is around a quarter of all adults. Yet Texas consistently ranks towards the bottom of the nation in terms of the mental health care available in the state. In 2025, Texas was ranked #33 in the country in terms of mental health treatment (according to mhanational.org), and in 2022, no fewer than 246 out of 254 Texas counties were designed as mental health professional shortage areas (according to the Texas Department of State Health Services), with one mental health worker for every 260 Texas residents in 2023 (according to the Mental Health America’s Access to Care Data report). So even after more than 75 years of efforts (Mental Health Awareness Month first began in 1949 as Mental Health Week), there is still a lot of work to be done to increase awareness in the mental health field.
What do you think BCPA should be doing to help in this area? Please let us know by sending an email to BCPA at drkevinaharris@gmail.com. Thanks!