As a nation, we are hurting.

In the third year of the pandemic — an era of shutdowns, isolation, and economic upheaval — mental-health problems are everywhere.

This spring, the National Center for Education Statistics found that, since the start of the pandemic, public schools have seen a dramatic increase in mental health concerns among their students: 70 percent reported more students seeking mental health services at school and 76 percent reported more staff voicing concerns about their students exhibiting symptoms of depression, anxiety, and trauma.

Drug overdoses and suicides have overtaken traffic accidents as the two leading causes of death among Americans ages 25 to 44, according to the National Council for Behavioral Health.

Suicide is the 12th leading cause of death in New York, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. In 2020, for every 100,000 New Yorkers, about eight people lost their lives to suicide; it is the second leading cause of death for people between the ages of 10 and 34 years old; and for people between the ages of 35 and 54, suicide is the fourth leading cause of death.

The whole world is hurting.

The World Health Organization in March released a report showing that, in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, “global prevalence of anxiety and depression increased by a massive 25 percent.”

Young people and women, the WHO found, were hit the hardest.

The WHO director-general called the findings “just the tip of the iceberg.” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, “This is a wake-up call to all countries to pay more attention to mental health and do a better job of supporting their populations’ mental health.”

We felt grateful, at the start of the pandemic, to live in Albany County where the county executive, Daniel McCoy, saw that a mental-health helpline was available from the start. Overseen by the mental health commissioner, Stephen Giordano, and his staff, the helpline provided residents with access to professionals when they most needed it.

McCoy, in his then-daily briefings, was also compassionate in speaking about residents suffering from alcoholism and other addictions. Unable to meet in person in their support groups and with added stress brought on by isolation and dislocation from daily routines, addiction problems increased.

“We have seen overdose fatalities rise precipitously in the last two years,” Giordano told us in an Enterprise podcast in May.

That month, the county launched a new social media campaign and video series to raise awareness for mental health and substance abuse challenges while connecting to programs and resources to help.

The theme of the campaign is one of McCoy’s favorite phrases: “We are all in this together.” County residents who are struggling may call 518-447-4555, and press 0 during regular workday hours. After hours, people in crisis may call psychiatric crisis services at 518-549-6500.

When you are feeling desperate, it may be hard to remember that phone number or where to look it up — someone even called our newsroom, frantically trying to find the number soon after we published it.

Starting this week, it should be easier to get help if you are feeling suicidal: Simply dial 988.

People who are struggling can call 988; so can their friends or family members.

The 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline will connect them to a trained counselor to address their immediate needs and help connect them to ongoing care. In 2020, Congress enacted the National Suicide Prevention Hotline Improvement Act, which established 988 as the universal dialing code for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.

The year before, in 2019, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline received 137,481 calls originating from New York State, a 73 percent increase since 2016. In 2020, New York State generated 142,827 calls, a 13-percent increase in just one year.

The state’s current budget included $35 million to expand 988 crisis call-center capacity throughout New York State; the service is now available in all 62 counties. This funding will increase to $60 million on a full annual basis starting in 2024.

It is money well spent — and may even reduce health-care spending with more cost-effective early intervention. It may also reduce the use of law enforcement.

A year ago, Albany County began a pilot program in the Helderberg Hilltowns called ACCORD, which stands for Albany County Crisis Officials Responding and Diverting.

In the wake of George Floyd’s murder, then-Governor Andrew Cuomo directed each municipality to come up with reform plans. One of the themes in many of these reform plans, including in Guilderland, is to have social workers rather than police respond to 911 calls where mental-health issues are involved.

“The police are necessary often in crisis response — they’re not always essential,” Giordano told us. “We’re trying to learn how to respond to psychiatric and mental-health emergencies with social workers.”

Giordano outlined three goals of the pilot program when it was presented last June. First, he said, “Mental-health crises deserve mental-health responses … That is the best way to serve people.”

Second, he said, the program will free up law enforcement to do public safety work since oftentimes, mental-health response is not integral to their work.

The third goal, Giordano said, is “to keep all parties safe, divert folks from hospitals which … are overwhelmed and from our jails … Our jails have become the de facto psych hospitals in this county, in this state, and in this nation.”

In June, we wrote about a Voorheesville man who, by his own account, had attempted suicide before. His story, reported by Sean Mulkerrin, made us see the hurt behind all the numbers at the start of this editorial. Here was a man who was suffering and in need of help. We fervently hope he doesn’t become another statistic.

A salesman who came to the man’s door discovered him prostrate — the man said he had been in and out of consciousness for days after suffering a heart attack — and called 911. A damaged gas line to his clothes dryer was discovered in his house and the man was ultimately charged with seven counts of reckless endangerment as seven nearby homes had been evacuated.

The man told Mulkerrin that his pet parrot, who stayed in the laundry room and had pecked through a water line to the washer before, had probably done the damage to the gas line.

This may have been a case where a social worker’s response could have gotten needed help for the man rather than having him arrested.

Giordano told us that, in the past six to eight months, the ACCORD program had answered about 400 calls in the Hilltowns and the hope is to expand the program elsewhere.

We whole-heartedly endorse the expansion of ACCORD. If people get the help they need for mental issues, they can again become productive members of our society rather than being jailed — a costly enterprise — in what Giordano terms “de facto psych hospitals.”

This approach to handling emergency calls has something in common with the new universal 988 number beyond saving money — and lives: Both help to reduce the stigma around mental-health issues. 

People should not be afraid to ask for help, and help should be provided when it’s needed.

With one in five people experiencing a diagnosed mental-health condition in any given year, Giordano believes it is essential to do away with the stigma.

“Most of the time we think it’s happening to ‘them’ …. Those poor people who have mental-health challenges,” he says, stressing, “We all have mental-health challenges.”

Giordano concludes, “The way you deal with stigma is to realize that we’re all in this together and to see in the other, yourself. That is how you develop empathy and compassion. And that’s something we don’t have enough of.”