Mental and Physical Health Are Champions of Happiness

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In the 1980s, Great Britain and the United States closed the institutions that were referred to then as insane asylums, ending an era of draconian practices. Both governments touted it as a cost-saving act. Although a shift in mental health treatment was warranted, the abolishment of treatment facilities was no solution, either fiscally or medically. The mental healthcare gap led to burgeoning homelessness and stress on prisons and police unequipped to handle mental health crises.

Over the 20 years that followed, mental health awareness caught the attention of citizens in both countries. In 2006, the United Nations and Gallup World Happiness Study began to poll people across the globe, asking how satisfied they are with their lives. Their World Happiness Reports note physical and mental health first on the list of factors affecting participants’ sense of well-being.

The 2023 Report, “The Happiness Agenda: the Next 10 Years,” concludes, “Based on what we have learned from the life evaluations of millions of survey respondents, one clear finding is that much more needs to be spent on mental healthcare and public health.”

Meager Spending

Preeti Vankar, on the website, Statista, reports that government mental health expenditure per capita is highest in Europe, averaging $46.49 U.S. in 2020. It is lowest in Southeast Asia and Africa at ten cents on the dollar per capita in 2020.

Plugging the dike of mental health losses nets social and fiscal wins.

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Chisholm, Sweeney, and colleagues, a team of economists, medical doctors, and professors of neurology and psychology, report in The Lancet Psychiatry that this worldwide meager investment in public mental health affects not just the health and well-being of people with mental disorders and their families, but also results in lost productivity and reduced workforces for employers, decreases tax receipts and consumption and increases health and welfare expenditures for governments.

The 2019 global economic cost of mental disorders is calculated at more than $4.7 trillion and will double by 2030 in the absence of a concerted response, according to Harvard Public Health researchers.

The Good News

However, there is good news. Investing in mental health care and prevention is universally cost-effective. In 2021, Le, Esturas, and colleagues performed a systematic review of economic evaluations of the cost-effectiveness evidence of mental health prevention and promotion of interventions. They found that mental health care effectively reduces disability benefits and health care costs and increases tax payments. Layard and Clark (2016) found that modern evidence-based psychotherapy for depression and anxiety disorders saves more than it costs. Even more cost-effective than treatment is the proactive promotion of conditions that support good mental health and prevent the onset of mental illness.

Worldwide, mental health care pays economic dividends. Funding mental health care and prevention is one of the few simple fixes for governments. It is a top priority for millions of people worldwide, as expressed by World Happiness Study respondents, and the simple act of using a finger of investment to plug the looming dike of doubling losses reduces suffering, stems the tide of economic and social costs, and brings overall fiscal benefit. It doesn’t get much better than that.