The latest Community Health Needs Assessment for Maine finds that mental health issues are on the rise.
Dr. Dora Anne Mills, chief health improvement officer at MaineHealth, said the findings for youth are concerning.
"Amongst our high school and middle school students, about a third of them now report that they felt very sad or hopeless for at least two weeks out of the last year. And that was about 1 in 5 only 15 years ago."
Mills said one indicator is the growth of so-called deaths of despair, which are linked to suicide, drug overdoses, and alcohol.
"It used to be that heart disease deaths 25 years ago in Maine outweighed the deaths of despair 10 to 1," she said. "And now those are 2 to 1."
Mills said providers are developing strategies to help people reduce stress and strengthen community connections and are encouraging limited use of smartphones.
The Community Health Needs Assessments are conducted every three years by Maine's Center for Disease Control, in collaboration with hospital systems, community action agencies, and others.
