Geographic Variation in Inpatient Stays for Five Leading Mental Disorders, 2016-2018

This visualization presents rates of hospitalization per 100,000 population for mental disorders during the 3-year period 2016-2018, comparing national, State, and substate areas. Based on an analysis of data from AHRQ's Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP), the visualization allows users to compare population rates of inpatient stays for the five leading mental disorder principal diagnoses in the United States: depressive disorders, schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, bipolar and related disorders, suicidal ideation or attempt or intentional self-harm, and trauma- and stressor-related disorders. The analysis covers inpatients of all ages at community hospitals excluding rehabilitation and long-term care hospitals.

For each disorder, substate regions have been organized into five uniformly populated sets, or "quintiles," as indicated in the map below. While quintiles vary in range, each contains the same number of reported regions. This approach is useful in identifying hot spots in hospitalization rates and examining how the rates vary across geographic areas of the United States.

Instructions: On the left side, select a mental disorder of interest; then select a State or multiple States in the State dropdown. Hover over regions within States to learn more about variations in rates of inpatient stays. The popup indicates the quintile of the hospitalization rate per 100,000 population and the State rate.

Source: HCUP Statistical Brief #288: Geographic Variation in Inpatient Stays for Five Leading Mental Disorders, 2016–2018. Statistics are presented for 38 States that, at the time this Statistical Brief was written, had released aggregate 2016–2018 data through the Community-Level Statistics path of HCUPnet, an online query tool for county- and substate region-level statistics. These States represented 80 percent of the U.S. population in 2018. Geographic areas are based on the patient ZIP Code of residence.