Teen mental health crisis needs broad response

Children and adolescents in our country are in crisis. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently released a comprehensive survey that chronicled a startling decline in adolescent mental health from 2009 to 2019. According to that report, more than 1 out of every 3 high school students had experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness in 2019 — a 40% increase since 2009. This is not an occasional bad day.