Studies conducted before the COVID pandemic concluded that mental health was worsening in the United States at every single age group. There is still a baseless stigma about mental health that discourages many individuals from seeking treatment, but there are also policy issues in both the government arena, and in the workplace.

The trend of worsening mental health certainly wasn’t reversed when the world was put on pause for the COVID-19 pandemic, and in June, at the height of the pandemic, more than 40% of U.S. adults reported struggles with mental health and/or substance abuse. Unlike physical ailments, that are dealt with rapidly, studies suggest that most individuals with mental illness do not seek treatment for at least a decade after their first symptoms.

Advocacy is important, but policy makes that advocacy worth it. Here are some ways to influence health policy in your community or workplace.

Recognizing Mental Illness

The first step in influencing policy is making the issue known, and to do that, a community must be educated on how to recognize mental health issues better. There are five main warning signs of mental illness, and they are: excessive anxiety, long-lasting sadness, extreme mood changes, social withdrawal, and changes in eating and sleeping patterns.

Encouraging individuals who experience these signs of mental illness to further self-evaluate themselves is important, but it’s equally important to encourage individuals in positions of authority to empower their employees by talking to them about their issues and listening and encouraging them to seek help.

Policy in the Workplace

Seeking that help can be much easier for employees if mental health evaluations are covered by company healthcare plans, and if it is not, your fight to influence should start there. Sharing statistics like the ones mentioned in the introduction, as well as those related to workplace performance and mental health is a good place to begin a constructive conversation.

Employers, themselves, should be wary of their own mental health, as issues cause anyone’s morale to decrease, and a decrease in morale at the top often leads to a decrease in morale among all employees. Human error is also more frequent in individuals who are experiencing untreated mental health issues.

If your attempts continue to fall on deaf ears, strength in numbers is always a good angle, so increasing peer advocacy efforts will help your influence on the powers that be.

Policy in Local Government

As is the case with anything decided in the offices of a local government, votes make the most change when influencing health policy. There are many organizations that empower citizens to act in their communities, and one with a ton of information on mental health legislation is the National Alliance on Mental Health, or NAMI.

NAMI provides information on bills at the national level that influence changes, and also provides resources to use to encourage (and create) policy at your local offices. These include laws regarding public healthcare, as well as laws that would require private healthcare to provide mental health services.

Continued Advocacy

The climb for mental health policy has been steep, and will likely continue to be so for the foreseeable future. The best way to ensure the fight continues in the right direction is to speak up and speak often about the seriousness of the issues surrounding mental health policy.