The influential US Preventive Services Task Force has issued a final recommendation for all American adults under 65 to be screened for anxiety, even if they are not showing symptoms. Dr. Wanda Nicholson, vice chair of the panel of public health experts, tells NBC that the move is a "call for action," especially when it comes to pregnant and postpartum women. The recommendation follows a draft recommendation issued last fall. Anxiety levels surged during the pandemic and the task force recommended screening for kids age eight and up last year.
"We recognize that there can be limitations in terms of access to mental health providers within the health care system," Nicholson says, but statistics show that for many people, anxiety disorders go untreated for far too long. "Only 11% of US adults with an anxiety disorder started treatment within the first year of onset; the median time to treatment initiation was 23 years," the task force's report said. Axios notes that the panel's recommendations "generally influence insurance plans and become standard medical practice." The panel said there's currently not enough evidence to support anxiety screening for people 65 and over, but there's an urgent need for more research.
Dr. Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, tells CNN that anxiety has been "under the radar" for too long and the recommendation is "an opportunity for us to get our hands around this crisis before we have a mental health emergency." "We know as a nation, we have under-invested in mental health. We have not put as much money into mental health," says Benjamin, who was not involved in the panel's report. "We have not been treating mental health at the same level as physical health. And we know that people who need mental health services are really struggling to find providers to care for them.” (More anxiety stories.)
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