Mental illness and unhappiness

Layard, Richard ORCID: 0000-0002-1313-699X, Chisholm, Dan, Patel, Vikram and Saxena, Shekhar (2013) Mental illness and unhappiness. CEP Discussion Papers (CEPDP1239). London School of Economics and Political Science. Centre for Economic Performance, London, UK.

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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.

Item Type:	Monograph (Discussion Paper)
Official URL:	https://cep.lse.ac.uk/_new/publications/discussion...
Additional Information:	© 2013 The Author(s)
Divisions:	Centre for Economic Performance
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HC Economic History and Conditions B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology
JEL classification:	I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I10 - General I - Health, Education, and Welfare > I1 - Health > I18 - Government Policy; Regulation; Public Health
Date Deposited:	22 Feb 2024 10:21
Last Modified:	11 Dec 2024 19:53
URI:	http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/id/eprint/121783

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