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ABSTRACT. Mental health problems affect roughly 1 in 5 adults, and 1 in 10 children at any one time. In rich countries they cause roughly 40% of disability, absenteeism and underperformance at work, and cost some 7% of GDP. Under % of those affected are in treatment, though excellent evidence-based treatments exist. The English programme Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT) has shown what can be achieved. It treats half a million patients a year. Its net cost is negative, since the gross cost is covered twice over in savings in welfare benefits/ lost taxes and in savings on physical healthcare. Wide availability of these treatments is imperative since common mental illnesses are empirically the biggest single cause of misery in rich countries.
Keywords: mental health; economic cost; morbidity; life-satisfaction; cost-saving
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Mental health is grossly underfunded. This is both inefficient and unjust.
In pure economic terms, mental illness causes 40% of disability, absenteeism and presenteeism; it increases crime; and worsens physical health. It costs 7% of GDP. But it can now be well-treated with good recovery rates, so that for depression and anxiety disorders the economic savings exceed the costs of treatment. Current underprovision of psychological therapy is therefore extremely inefficient.
It is also unjust, since empirically mental illness accounts for more misery in modern Western countries than any other single factor.
These facts are what I seek to prove in this paper. Section 1 describes the economic costs of mental illness. Section 2 describes what treatments are available and shows how these can more than pay for themselves in savings in the labor market and in physical healthcare. Section 3 describes the major English programme of Improving Access to Psychological Therapies which has made these therapies widely available. And Section 4 points out that dealing with our mental health problems is not only an economic imperative but a matter of common humanity. More detail can be found in Thrive.1
1.The Costs of Mental Illness
Prevalence
Mental health is a major factor in the economy both because mental illness is so common and because it is so disabling. As Table 1 shows, for a typical country nearly 1 in 5 adults are suffering from a diagnosable mental illness....