As Americans celebrate the holiday season, millions of families will have an empty chair at the table for a relative who is lost in our failed mental health system or is one of the more than 80,000 people with mental illnesses who died this year. These deaths are tragically unique in our public health system for two reasons: They are continually increasing in number yet fully preventable.

In the last decade there has been a decrease in the mortality rates for heart disease, stroke, HIV/AIDs, car accidents and cancer. Yet, during the same time frame the rates for suicide have increased and since 2000 the rates for drug overdoses has increased 137 percent, including a 200 percent increase in the rate of overdose deaths involving opioids.