Youths experienced negative mental health during most of the pandemic

(KYMA, KECY/CNN) - According to the U.S. Surgeon General, young people felt gradual negative impacts to their mental health during and following the COVID-19 pandemic.

"I've had a lot of friends come to me, telling me that they're struggling," a student tells Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy.

Many students felt as if their issues weren't worth talking to a counselor about.

Dr. Murthy is seeing this decline in mental health as an 'urgent crisis' across the nation and wants to find a way to help youths.

A survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says more than a third of U.S. high school students felt negative mental health during most of the pandemic.

"The items that you honed in on immediately, you know thinking about the role of social media, about how it impacts your sense of worth and value, about some of the cultural forces that lead us to feel like we're not enough. These are at the heart of what we've got to address and those insights are ones that not everyone has," explains Dr. Murthy