Direct Costs and Expenditures for Mental Health Care in in the United States in 1980
Richard G. Frank Ph.D.1 and
Mark S. Kamlet Ph.D.2
1 Health Services Research and Development Center, School of Hygiene and Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, 624 North Broadway, Baltimore, Maryland 21205
2 The Department of Social Sciences at Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh
Estimates of direct costs and expenditures for mental health care in 1980 are presented in this analysis. Besides estimates for the specialty mental health sector, the general medical sector, and the human service sector (schools and the criminal justice system), the authors include transportation costs and expenditures for transfer payments. They obtained a low total estimate of $19.2 billion and a high total estimate of $22 billion. Comparisons with previous estimates indicate an annual growth rate in real costs for mental health care of about 1.7 percent since 1971.
