Pittsburgh-area courts have a new tool for people in mental health crisis: the power to order treatment instead of incarceration or hospitalization.
Between 2015 and 2022, more than 5,000 people a year were evaluated for involuntary hospitalization in Allegheny County, and roughly 3,700 were committed. Fewer than half got follow-up outpatient care afterward, and 20% died within five years of that first evaluation. These deaths often trace to more than psychiatric illness – untreated medical conditions, substance use, unstable housing, poverty and limited care access all raise mortality risk too.
