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National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS)

The National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS) is a source of national- and state-level data on the mental health services delivery system reported by both publicly and privately operated specialty mental health treatment facilities.

Data Source

Details

The National Substance Use and Mental Health Service Survey (N-SUMHSS) replaced the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) and the National Mental Health Services Survey (N-MHSS) in 2021 by combining questions for substance use and mental health facilities. The N-SSATS and N-MHSS were combined to reduce burden on the facilities, optimize government resources to collect data, and enhance the quality of data collected.

Prior to 2021, the N-MHSS included information on the following facilities:

  • Public and private psychiatric hospitals
  • Nonfederal general hospitals with separate psychiatric units
  • U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers
  • Residential treatment centers for children and adults
  • Community mental health centers
  • Outpatient, day treatment, or partial hospitalization mental health facilities
  • Multi-setting (non-hospital) mental health facilities

Data files are made available by SAMHSA for research and statistical purposes. Along with codebooks and questionnaires, ASCII, SAS, SPSS, Stata, R, and TSV files are shared for public use. Read more here.

N-MHSS is an annual survey to collect information on the location, organization, structure, services, and utilization of mental health treatment facilities. It is designed to collect statistical information on all known mental health treatment facilities in the United States. This includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia, and all U.S. territories. Every other year, starting in 2014, N-MHSS also collects information on the numbers and demographics of persons served in these treatment centers.

Reports

Description: These reports focus on providing in-depth analysis on a specific subset compared to a larger dataset.
Location: National
Format: PDF or HTML

Description: The National Directories are listings of federal, state, and local government facilities and private facilities that provide treatment services for substance use or mental disorders. Each Directory is ordered alphabetically by state, by city within each state, and by facility name within each city.
Location: National
Format: PDF or HTML

Description: These reports present data on a single state or territory, and they may be released as a stand-alone publication or a recurring report.
Location: National, states, substates, or metro area
Format: PDF or HTML

Quick Statistics

These state profiles include data from facilities that are reported to the N-SSATS and N-MHSS surveys.

Criteria