Substance abuse and mental health service administration - Research Paper Example

Of this number, 36.2 million do not have substance abuse disorder. Comparatively 20.8 million or about 9% of the US adult population had SUD, but 11.9 million of them had no mental illness. The convergence of the blue and yellow circles represented by the green portion, or 8.9 million, accounts for those who both had substance use and mental health disorder at the same time. This suggests that about 4% of the US adult population in 2009 suffered from co-morbidity of substance abuse and mental illness (SAMSHA, 2010b).

As indicated graphically in Figure 2, there were more substance users among US adults with mental illness in 2009 than in 2008, across all the illicit substances considered in the figure. It may be observed that Marijuana use increased by 10% in 2009, while use of psychotherapeutics posted an increment of 8.6%, and cocaine use swelled by 2.9%. Hallucinogens, inhalants and Heroin registered usage growth of 2.4%, 0.9% and 0.6% respectively (SAMSHA, 2010b). These statistics suggests that substance use among adults with mental illness dramatically increased between 2008 and 2009.

In terms of rehabilitation, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (2010b) reported that 30.2 million adults received mental health services in 2009. Approximately the same percentage was reported for 2008 (13%). However, more than half of the 8.9 million adults who had both mental illness and substance use disorders were found to have received no treatment for either one of the co-morbid disorders. As depicted in Figure 3, 55.8% or close to 5 million of adults with both substance abuse and mental health disorders did not receive any treatment.

Of those who received treatment, 32.9% or about 3 million received treatment for mental health only and 3.8% or 0.34 million received treatment for substance use only. Only 7.4% or 0.66 million were able to receive care and treatment for both mental