May is Mental Health Awareness Month: Creating More Good Days for Caregivers
May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this year Mental Health America (MHA) is rallying around a theme that resonates deeply with the work Trualta does every day: More Good Days, Together.
MHA’s campaign is built on a simple but powerful premise — that “good” doesn’t have to mean happy or productive. For the people in your health system or workforce who are quietly holding someone else’s world together, a good day might simply mean feeling less alone, slightly less overwhelmed, or just a little more capable than the day before.
We’re talking about family caregivers. And for health systems and employers paying attention, Mental Health Month is the right moment to ask: are we doing enough to help them have more good days?
The Mental Health Crisis Hiding in Plain Sight
The scale of family caregiving in America has grown dramatically. According to the 2025 Caregiving in the US report from AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving, 63 million Americans are now family caregivers — a nearly 50% increase since 2015. That’s roughly one in four adults quietly managing medications, coordinating appointments, and absorbing the emotional weight of someone else’s illness or decline, often while holding down a job.
The mental health toll is steep and well-documented. Nationally, 39% of family caregivers experience high emotional stress due to caregiving. Stress and anxiety disorders are the most prevalent challenges, reported by 87% of caregivers at some point, and experienced at least weekly by more than half. And yet, only 23% of caregivers report having “good” mental health.
These statistics represent your members, your employees. The people your organization serves.
You Cannot Separate the Caregiver from the Care
MHA’s 2026 Mental Health Month theme highlights a truth that Trualta has long understood: you cannot separate mental health from physical health and wellness, and you cannot support quality care without supporting the person delivering it.
Seven in ten family caregivers are employed, but many face disruptions and lack access to supportive benefits. For health systems, this translates to increased utilization, higher costs, and poorer outcomes — not just for the care recipient, but for the caregiver themselves. Nearly a quarter of caregivers report difficulty caring for themselves, 64% report high emotional stress, and 45% report high physical strain.
When caregivers burn out, their overall health suffers and the downstream impact is costly. They disengage. They make mistakes. They end up in your waiting rooms and urgent care centers seeking treatment for themselves — that treatment often comes too late.
What “Good Days, Together” Looks Like in Practice
MHA encourages organizations to think about what it means to meet people where they are and support them as whole people. For Trualta, that means equipping caregivers with the skills, knowledge, and emotional tools they need before they reach a breaking point.
Trualta’s platform gives health systems and employers a proven way to do exactly that — through on-demand caregiver education covering everything from managing medication and reducing fall risk to building stress resilience and preventing isolation. The goal isn’t to make caregiving effortless. It’s to make caregivers feel less alone, better prepared, and more confident — conditions that research consistently links to improved mental health outcomes.
Reflecting on platform data in 2025, 88% of caregivers who used Trualta reported reduced stress and 89% reported increased confidence after completing modules. Source: Trualta Platform Utilization Data, internal report.
Connection Is Protection — and It Starts with You
One of MHA’s core messages this May is that connection is protection. Small moments of support — whether in person or digital — can meaningfully reduce stress and anxiety. Making connections is step one in mental health first aid. At Trualta, peer support and bringing people together is an organizational imperative. Addressing caregiver mental health requires more than a resource list. It requires proactive, scalable support infrastructure built into the systems caregivers already interact with.
Health plans and employers are uniquely positioned to close the mental well being gap. Healthcare systems often overlook caregivers, with few being asked about their own needs. Most of the concern centers around the person they care for, despite their critical role in care delivery. That has to change.
More Good Days Are Possible
This Mental Health Month, we invite our health system and employer partners to reflect on a simple question: what does a good day look like for the caregivers in your population — and what are you doing to help them have more of them?
Because when caregivers thrive, the people they support do too. And that’s exactly the kind of ripple effect that makes communities and health systems that serve them healthier.
To learn how Trualta supports caregiver mental health and skill-building at scale, contact us or visit trualta.com.
This post was adapted with permission from Mental Health America’s 2026 Mental Health Month Planning Guide, in accordance with MHA’s guidelines for organizational adaptation. Learn more at mhanational.org/may.
Sources
- AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving. (July 2025). Caregiving in the US 2025. Washington, DC: AARP. https://doi.org/10.26419/ppi.00373.001
- AARP and National Alliance for Caregiving. (October 2025). Caregiving in the US 2025: Caring Across States. Washington, DC: AARP. https://doi.org/10.26419/ppi.00383.001
- A Place for Mom. (September 2025). 2026 Caregiver Burnout and Stress Statistics. Morning Light Strategy. https://www.aplaceformom.com/senior-living-data/caregiver-burnout-statistics
- Caregiver Action Network. (2025). Data & Insights on the Caregiver Experience in the U.S. https://www.caregiveraction.org/caregiver-statistics/
- Mental Health America. (2026). Mental Health Month Planning Guide 2026: More Good Days, Together. https://mhanational.org/may
- Trualta. (Date). Trualta Platform Utilization Data. Internal report. [CONFIRM BEFORE PUBLISHING]
