Mental Health Promotion and Disease Prevention: It's About Time.

Over the past decade, our field has observed rapidly rising rates of mental illness in children and adolescents. The numbers are sobering. Nearly 50% of teens 13 to 18 years of age meet DSM criteria for at least 1 disorder and 27.6% meet criteria for a "severe disorder." Adverse childhood experiences affect more than 50% of children and predispose these individuals to not only academic and behavioral problems throughout their youth, but also future physical disability, such as obesity, hypertension, and diabetes, as adults. By 14 years of age, accidents, suicide, and homicide assert themselves as the leading causes of death among our youth, accounting for more than 85% of the mortality among teens and young adults and holding fast to that ranking until 35 years of age. Most addictive behavior starts in adolescence, accounting for the 3 greatest causes of preventable death-smoking, obesity, and alcohol abuse-that take the lives of approximately 1 million adults in the United States annually. In addition, if there were ever a statistic to be held on the tip of every psychiatrist's tongue, it would be that 50% of all mental illnesses begin by 14 years of age and 75% begin by 24 years..