Mental health includes our emotions, psychological, and social well-being. It affects how we think, feel, and act. Many factors contribtue to mental health problems, including: 1. Biological factors, such as genes or brain chemistry 2. Life experiences, such as trauma or abuse 3. Family history of mental health problems
Positive mental health allows people to realize their full potential, cope with life stresses and work productively. In United States alone, 85166 people have depression and 1544 are not sure about their condition.
There is a stigma attached to mental health, which makes people with mental illness very hard to express their feelings and can lead to even more depression. It can interfere severly with one’s life, it can take over one’s life and can make basic daily tasks unbearable to carry out. 25.5392776% of people in the survey said they have limitations due to mental health issues.
Data viz plays a very big role in making an impression of the data on the people. It can deceive people of what the data actually represents. The bar chart represents the Yes/No responses of people to different questions. From a glance the number of Yes responses might seem more because its stacked over the No responses.
The bar chart tells us that more people have responsed No compared to Yes. There are much more people having limitation to do the basic things in life compared to the other two questions. When you hover over the orange bars, you can see the total number of responses, and is clear when you compare those numbers.
Most people feel sad or depressed at times, its normal to react to a loss or life’s struggle. The feeling of intense sadness, including helplessness, hopelessness and/or worthlessness, when lasts for many days to weeks and becomes a limiter in living your life, it can be diagnosed as clinical depression.
One of the most common question asked to people was, how many days during the past 30 days was your mental health not good which includes stress, depression, and problems with emotions?
The map gives us an idea about the mean days a person was sad over the past 30 days in every state
We can figure out the most top 10 saddest states in North America from the survey data set. West Virginia is in the heart of coal country. And the coal business is not great right now. The economy of a coal town can radiate out into problems with physical and mental health.
The economy is built on physically grueling jobs. An injury causes pain, which causes depression. Depression makes it harder to work. People gain weight. The weight gain leads to sleep apnea and sometimes to diabetes. Diabetes can exacerbate vision problems … people self-medicate with prescription painkillers, alcohol, and tobacco. Eventually, said Smiddy, the pulmonologist, “they become dysfunctional. They’re weaving behind the car. They’re setting the stove on fire. It’s not that they’re bad people. They’re probably faith-based people, family people. Most are just trying to function.”
| State | Average Sad Days |
|---|---|
| Puerto Rico | 17.31327 |
| West Virginia | 13.98938 |
| Arkansas | 13.29161 |
| Mississippi | 13.04003 |
| Tennessee | 12.98943 |
| Florida | 12.91050 |
| Kentucky | 12.79765 |
| Oklahoma | 12.72528 |
| Missouri | 12.33472 |
| South Carolina | 12.25689 |