A community health case for psychiatric care: A cross-sectional study of county health rankings

OBJECTIVES: To determine if there is an association between the provision of mental health services and county health rankings in the United States. METHODS: We used retrospective population-based, 2016 U.S. county level cross-sectional analysis to determine the association of mental health services provision on U.S. counties health rankings. The key dependent variables in this study were the county health factor rankings (CHR). The presence of inpatient, outpatient and other facilities which may provide mental health services are identified for each county. Multilevel mixed effects ordinal logistic regression models were used to account for nesting effects utilizing two levels of data which include hospital- and county-level data. RESULTS: Better county health rankings were associated with the presence of Outpatient services (OR = 0.69, 95% CI: 0.55-0.85) and Psychiatric hospital (OR = 0.55, 95% CI: 0.40-0.74). CONCLUSION: These findings suggest a significant association between psychiatric care and community health. Access to psychiatric services is associated with improved population health.