For the first time, adults under the age of 65 are recommended to be screened for anxiety. Cheddar News breaks down how anxiety has become such a cross-generational epidemic. Gene Beresin, MD, MA, executive director of the Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and Dr. Lori Pbert, a member of the U.S. Preventative Services Task Force joined Cheddar News to discuss.&nbsp;

Today Explained: Panel Recommends Anxiety Screening for Adults Under 65

Welcome back to news wrap. It's time for today explained where we break down some of the biggest stories in the news, how we got here, where we go next. The US preventative Services Task Force has recommended for the first time That adults under the age of 65 be screened for anxiety. The move comes months after the task force issued similar guidance for Children and adolescents. The goal is to find early signs of anxiety in people who aren't yet exhibiting symptoms so the condition can be identified and treated before it gets worse. It's another step towards addressing the mental health crisis in our country, with a growing number of adult experiencing anxiety, depression and other disorders. But not everyone is getting treatment for these illnesses. According to the anxiety and Depression Association of America. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the US affecting 40 million adults or 19.1% of the population aged 18 and older. This is every single year. And while anxiety disorders are highly tree, only 36.9% of those suffering received treatment for more insight on this. I'm joined by two experts. Dr Lori Siebert, who serves as member of the task force and Dr Eugene Bernsen, executive director of the Clay Center for Young healthy Minds at massachusetts. General Hospital Doctors. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for your time. Dr P But I'll start with you first. How did the panel come up with this recommendation in the first place. So thank you Rachel and thank you for tackling this very important issue. So, as part of our usual process, the task force accepts nominations for new topics and this topic was nominated and prioritized because of its public health importance. And so this started actually about 2,018 that we started tackling this particular recommendation. And we're very pleased to be able to provide this recommendation on screening for anxiety and adults and to be able to recommend that screening occurring adults ages 64 or younger. Dr. Morrison onto you. What's your take on this recommendation to screen adults? Like Dr. P. Burt said under for adults under 65 for anxiety. But first thank you for having me. I think that I think screening is terrific. I think that there is certainly a mental health crisis. But one of the problems is this is that the mean age of onset that the average age of onset of anxiety disorders is 11. Uh and the study showed that that it takes up to 23 years to get treatment. So my own personal and I'm a child adolescent psychiatrist. And since most of these disorders begin in childhood, I think focusing the younger we focus the more we can catch it early because the longer you have an anxiety disorder, the longer you're going to continue to have it. Uh And the other big problem is is that as we pick up more and more cases we have a real workforce crisis in this country. And given the workforce crisis, we're not gonna have enough clinicians to actually take care of the people that are turning up if you tried to get a therapist these days, it's really, really, really hard. That is such a good point. Dr pepper, going back to you picking back off just that. What do you think about those concerns at the mental health care system in the US is just not well equipped to handle the surgeon screenings that we're seeing. That is very justified in 100% agreement regarding that concern. Also, just to note that we have our final recommendation on screening for anxiety disorders in Children and adolescents, uh that will be coming out shortly. And so that's addressing one of the points that you have just made, which is, we really need to be tackling this early on. The problem is that many people get into adulthood without having been identified as having anxiety disorders. And so this other recommendation where we're looking at screening for anxiety disorders in adults will help us to pick up on the those that have not go and identified and youth and remember we're talking about individuals who are not showing signs and symptoms. So, these are people who have not had any anxiety issues addressed by a primary care clinician or mental health care professional, we actually have a question from a mental health care professional, Shani Tran, we're gonna take a listen to it and then dr Berenson, I'm gonna talk to you about it on the other side. My question is, if you're going to be testing everyone that is under the age of 65, what instruments will you be using? And will they be culturally sensitive to be able to assess the differences across cultures when it comes to anxiety? Great question, Dr. Berenson, your thoughts. Well, actually, that's Dr. Pepper's expertise in that mind. Well, I think one of the gaps is that um cultural sensitivity is not effectively covered. In fact, it was mentioned as one of the research gaps in the study. So, it's a wonderful question. We have to remember that every culture, every ethnicity has various different ways of looking and beliefs about mental illness. And we need to take those things into account. Otherwise we're gonna be missing things or we're going to screen those folks and turn out positive. But then we won't be taking into account the stigma and the taboos and the cultural uh barriers for getting treatment. So, we have to address that as well. And that's going to take an educational effort dr robert your thoughts. Absolutely. And as mentioned, um the task force has called out the need for research specifically on populations that have not been included in the research to date. And that includes various racial ethnic populations, um different ages, different genders. And so we do need to have more research to make sure that the screening tools as well as the treatments that we have available are culturally sensitive and appropriate. And we'll be serving the most individuals in the best way possible. Dr Lori P. Burt, member of the US preventative Services Task Force and Dr Eugene Garrison, executive director of the Clay Center for Young healthy minds at massachusetts General Hospital. I appreciate both your time and insight. Thank you so much.