| By: |
Layard, Richard (London School of Economics);
Chisholm, Dan (World Health Organization);
Patel, Vikram (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine);
Saxena, Shekhar (World Health Organization) |
| Abstract: |
This paper is a contribution to the second World Happiness Report. It makes
five main points. 1. Mental health is the biggest single predictor of
life-satisfaction. This is so in the UK, Germany and Australia even if mental
health is included with a six-year lag. It explains more of the variance of
life-satisfaction in the population of a country than physical health does,
and much more than unemployment and income do. Income explains 1% of the
variance of life-satisfaction or less. 2. Much the most common forms of mental
illness are depression and anxiety disorders. Rigorously defined, these affect
about 10% of all the world’s population – and prevalence is similar in rich
and poor countries. 3. Depression and anxiety are more common during working
age than in later life. They account for a high proportion of disability and
impose major economic costs and financial losses to governments worldwide. 4.
Yet even in rich countries, under a third of people with diagnosable mental
illness are in treatment. 5. Cost-effective treatments exist, with recovery
rates of 50% or more. In rich countries treatment is likely to have no net
cost to the Exchequer due to savings on welfare benefits and lost taxes. But
even in poor countries a reasonable level of coverage could be obtained at a
cost of under $2 per head of population per year. |
| Keywords: |
mental illness, welfare benefits, healthcare costs, life-satisfaction |
| JEL: |
I10 I14 I18 |
| Date: |
2013–09 |
| URL: |
http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:iza:izadps:dp7620&r=ias |