Florida has 3x the national average of mental illness. Any comments?

Question

Miami Herald. I live in Fl, and that would explain a lot.

Answer 1

And gators.

Answer 2

Where did you get your statistics?

Answer 3

Coincidental.

Answer 4

There are a lot of senior citizens there, and many moved away from their families in other states.  Older people are more likely to have depression due to illness or reduced ability to function, plus a lot of your friends start dying off.   There is also often chronic pain that eventually causes depression. Dementia is categorized as a mental illness.

Also, I believe Florida has a very large population of low income people? If that is correct, then there tends to be higher rates of depression in that group, due to daily stress.

Florida spends more on medical care per person than many other states for some reason. Such as they run a lot more tests. It may be that more people are being treated than other states, on average.  Interestingly, even tho Florida spends more money on patient care, patient outcomes are better in states that spend much less. It is thought that there are too many tests being done, and some of those tests (angiogram for example) can cause death.