National Survey of Children’s Health Is Representative of Children, Not Mothers—Reply

In Reply In 2024, an advisory from the US Surgeon General identified parental mental health as a pressing public health issue, highlighting rising levels of parental stress. Following this advisory, our study used the National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH) to investigate recent trends and disparities in self-reported maternal health and found substantial declines in mental health. Between 2016 and 2023, the adjusted prevalence of fair/poor mental health increased 3.5 percentage points (pp; increase of 64.0% from a baseline of 5.5%). This mental health decline was largely consistent across socioeconomic subgroups. We thank Lebrun-Harris et al for their thoughtful comments on our study and their important work as data stewards. In their Letter, they raised 3 concerns regarding the generalizability and framing of our results.

from JAMA Internal Medicine Online First https://ift.tt/HO0qs2L