• Katherine LeMasters, Mary E Cox, Mike Fliss, Julie Seibert, Carrie Brown, and Scott Proescholdbell.
• Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA; Injury and Violence Prevention Branch, Division of Public Health, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, USA. Electronic address: Katherine.lemasters@unc.edu.
• Am J Emerg Med. 2022 Jul 1; 57: 103106103-106.

BackgroundMental health (MH) disorders comprise a high disease burden and have long-lasting impacts. To improve MH, it is important to define public health MH surveillance.MethodsWe compared MH related definitions using ICD-10-CM codes: The Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists' (CSTE) surveillance indicators for all MH, mood or depressive, schizophrenic, and drug/alcohol-induced disorders; and North Carolina's (NC) syndromic surveillance system's definition for anxiety/mood/psychotic disorders, and suicide/self-harm. We compared code definitions and frequent codes in 2019 emergency department (ED) data for those age ≥ 10 years.ResultsCSTE's definition resulted in over one million MH-related visits (23% of all ED visits) and NC's definitions in 451,807 MH-related visits (9% of all ED visits). Using CSTE's broadest definition, nicotine use was the most common visit type; using NC's definitions, it was major depressive disorder.ConclusionsStandardizing population-level MH indicators benefits surveillance efforts. Given its prevalence, efforts should focus on documenting MH to improve treatment and prevention.Copyright © 2022 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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