Why mental health matters

Mental health can cause consequences that hurt not only individuals and families but workplaces, public assistance systems and the economy.

Here's how:

• Mental disorders top the list of the U.S.'s most costly conditions, at $201 billion, followed by heart conditions, trauma and cancer, according to Health Affairs.

• Unemployment among people served by public mental health systems is more than three times that of the general population, and employment rates decreased with increasing severity of mental illness, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

• Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide, according to the NAMI.

• Ninety percent of people who die by suicide have an underlying mental health condition, according to suicide.org and NAMI.

• Up to one-quarter of the country's homeless population has some form of severe mental illness, compared with 6 percent of the general population, according to the National Coalition for the Homeless.

• Of 2 million people incarcerated nationwide, an estimated 356,000 prisoners suffer some form of mental illness. Cook County Jail alone houses as many as 3,000 people with a diagnosed mental illness.

• Poor mental health can cause sleep difficulties, which affects concentration, job or school performance and ability to fight disease.

• Untreated mental conditions can strain families and relationships.

• Attempts to self-medicate can lead to drug addiction and overdoses.