Now this article was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original article. Other studies reach similar conclusions and overall the evidence suggests that countries with generous social protection, low unemployment, high levels of social investment and a wellregulated labour market, perform better looking at the inequalities in mental health. Certainly, the evidence suggests that the, among other ‘high income’ countries, is in the midst of a mental health cr. While as many as one in four people experience a mental health problem in any given year, a recent report by the Mental Health Network, found that 19 adults percent had been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lives. Whenever suggesting that the burden on the NHS and identical social services will grow in the years to come, even more worryingly, mental illness is high among the young. Remember, participation in ‘wellresourced’ training programs might reduce inequalities in mental health by improving the experience of unemployment. Anyways, building on the approach of Carter and Whitworth, To be honest I suggest this might happen through two mechanisms. Second, better employment outcomes might reduce inequalities in mental health, particularly among socially disadvantaged groups as good quality work is beneficial to mental health. Basically the negative effects on mental health linked to unemployment are believed to be partly associated with the damage to self esteem and feeling of purpose, that training programs could reduce.
Similarly, inequalities in mental health increase demands on NHS services in disadvantaged areas, where budgets are often already overstretched. Reducing these inequalities through social policies that target the social determinants of mental health may relieve strains on health care services in deprived areas and on p of that contribute to wider health equity. One such study examined rates of depression across European welfare regimes. That said, this they linked to the weaker social protection and poorer quality of work in the liberal and southern welfare states, compared with Scandinavian and conservative ones. They found that on average depression was highest in liberal and southern welfare states and lowest in Scandinavian and conservative regimes. Notice, while suggesting that inequalities are intergenerational and start early in lifespan, reviews also find that socioeconomically disadvantaged children are at greater risk of mental illness than those from more privileged backgrounds. Did you know that the evidence to date reveals only broad links between social and labor market policies and inequalities in mental health. Those that are more generous and with better labor market conditions, are expected to have narrower inequalities in mental health as they will reduce the negative impact of poverty, unemployment and similar social determinants of health. Loads of studies have looked at variations and inequalities in mental health across welfare regimes. There are clusters of countries ranked conforming to their generosity of social protection, levels of social investment, and quality of working conditions.
Another study that focused more directly on inequalities examined how links between depression and education varied across European welfare regimes.
With its poorly developed systems of social protection and high poverty rates, they also found that the southern welfare state, was less successful at reducing the link between education and depression, particularly when compared with the northern welfare state.
Now this, they suggested, might be partly explained by the generosity of the Nordic welfare regime. Studies have repeatedly shown that mental health remains inversely associated with social class, even though mental health problems have risen among affluent social groups. And so it’s commonly thought that depression and mental illness are middle class problems, yet this idea ain’t supported by evidence. Besides, the risk of developing a mental disorder rises alongside socioeconomic disadvantage and the odds of reporting depression are almost twice as high among those in the lowest socioeconomic groups, compared with the highest. I am sure that the causes of these inequalities in mental health are thought to be identical to those thataffect other facts of the social distribution of health. Importantly, the negative impact of these social determinants of health can be reduced through ‘well designed’ social and labor market policies, as I discovered while researching my thesis on this topic.
