A record low proportion of Americans rate their mental health as “good” or “excellent” according to a Gallup poll released on Thursday.
The percentage of Americans polled who rated their mental health as “excellent” dropped below 30% for the first time this year while the number who rated their mental health as either “good” or “excellent” also dropped to a record low 72%.
These numbers began trending downward after the Covid-19 pandemic–before 2020, 42% or more Americans consistently rated their mental health as “excellent”.
Experts said that, while this decline is cause for public health concern, the news isn’t all bad.
David Radley, senior scientist for health system tracking at the Commonwealth Fund, said that increased cultural openness surrounding mental health issues likely has meant Americans are more willing to admit they’re struggling.
“In some ways, people acknowledging and being willing to talk about mental health struggles is actually a good sign,” Radley said.
Dr Lisa Rosenthal, a psychiatry professor at Northwestern University, agreed that the numbers “might be a signal that stigma is improving and people are more aware of psychiatric symptoms”.
Social media content about conditions like bipolar, complex PTSD, autism and ADHD shows a growing number of adults recognizing that difficulties they have faced their whole lives might be related to treatable mental health conditions.
A White Paper from the nonprofit Fair Health confirms that mental health related diagnoses have increased dramatically since 2019. Some of these conditions, like generalized anxiety disorder and major depressive disorder, could be related to the stress of the pandemic. Others, like ADHD and bipolar, are currently understood to be lifelong conditions that are not dictated by circumstances like a pandemic.
While declining stigma surrounding mental health likely contributed, Radley and Rosenthal agreed that the trauma of the Covid-19 pandemic, and other circumstances like uncertainty around politics and the economy, are having an enormous impact on the mental health of Americans. Rosenthal said that, to some degree, a decline in mental health is to be expected in these uncertain times.
“Not all unhappiness is something that needs to be treated, and some reactions are totally normal, even if they’re very unpleasant,” Rosenthal said.
“We could talk for hours about the things that are making society unhappy. Obviously, politics is one thing that my patients are citing a lot, and that’s patients from all backgrounds. But certainly, if you’re an immigrant in the United States right now, your level of stress is extraordinarily high.”
Self-reported mental health declined more dramatically among groups that typically have higher self-rated mental health, including college educated adults and Republicans, according to the Gallup poll.
The number of Republicans who rated their mental health as “excellent” dropped from 53 % during 2014-2019 to 40% in 2020-2025, aligning them more closely with Democrats. Typically, people rate their mental health better when their political party is in power, but both of the survey periods included Democratic and Republican presidencies.
The number of college graduates who rated their mental health as “excellent” dropped by 17% down to 36% between the two periods, aligning them more closely with their non-college educated peers, 30% of whom rated their mental health “excellent” in 2020-2025.
“[College graduates’] mental health worsened more, but it made them more equal to people without a college education. I’m not sure what that signal means, but I think it means we’re all pretty unhappy,” Rosenthal said.
Rosenthal believes that, in addition to the uncertain circumstances Americans face, they are also becoming more disconnected.
“There’s just so much anger that civility and discourse have been so disrupted. We can’t talk to each other, and our sense of community and belonging has been altered dramatically,” she said.
But even as Americans are becoming more polarised, their mental outcomes are simultaneously becoming more aligned, the poll says.
“A lot of shoes feel like they’re about to drop for a lot of people,” Radley said. “I don’t think the shoes dropping discriminates.”
