Oklahoma has issues.
22-percent, nearly one-in-four, Oklahomans suffers from some form of mental illness. State Mental Health Commissioner Terri White presented the figures to a special house interim committee this morning.
TERRY WHITE: "In the latest report that came out this summer, we are number two in the United States for the number of people struggling with mental health."
Why is that?
She blames Oklahoma’s overall health scores. She says if we have high rates of all diseases, it is not surprising we have high rates of "brain disease".
White says in raw numbers, between 700,000 and 950,000 are suffering from either mental illness or substance abuse and, in some cases, both.