The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has released a new Child Behavioral Health Dashboard.
The online tool includes information on things like the percentage of children across the state diagnosed with depression, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or ADHD, and substance use disorder. Metrics also include emergency department numbers.
Denise Price is the behavioral health services director with Forsyth County. She says there are a lot of stakeholder groups who can benefit from this data.
“That could be school systems in designing their programs, it could be parents to get some insight as to what maybe their children are experiencing, and their peer groups are experiencing," she says. "It could be faith leaders, who maybe are beginning to see trends within their congregations, and could use this data to inform topics of discussion or resources brought on site.”
The information can be filtered by geography, race, ethnicity, age, and gender. Price says this will allow Forsyth County to better gauge whether their programs are working, and find out more about what other regions are doing well.
“I think there's a lot of opportunity for learning, this opportunity for being proactive. And then there's a great feedback loop — we will have the ability to benchmark against a consistent data source.”
According to NCDHHS, suicide is now the second leading cause of death among North Carolina youth ages 10 to 18.
More on Forsyth County behavioral health resources can be found here.
If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call or text 988.