Mental health is a broad term that covers all aspects of psychological factors that may affect a person’s wellbeing. They include personality disorders, depression, substance abuse schizophrenia, epilepsy, dementia, alcohol dependence and others. They constitute a large portion of about 13 percent of the global burden of diseases. Mental health covers a dimension of a person’s welfare or on the reverse side lack of such welfare and it is not linked to other common outcome indicators such as income, expenditure, or poverty. It is believed that mental health as an outcome should be given some more consideration by policymakers and researchers.
A study carried out by Das et al (2009) indicates that there is no connection between mental health and economic status. In the study carried out across five developing countries, there was no correlation noted between mental health status and poverty. Generally, happiness may be a part of or a contributor to mental health. Happiness is not based on income level. According to Stevenson and Wolfers, (2008) the relationship between income and satisfaction in life is yet to be seen. It is debatable and this means that there is no proof of mental health being related to or influenced by economic status.
Studies have been carried out to determine the effects of poor health status on education, workforce, productivity, and the economy generally but little has been done when it comes to mental health. as observed by Maccini and Yang, (2009) more attention should be given to the mental health problem to determine its consequences on the economy; by studying its effect on human capital.
References
Das, J., Q.T. Do, J. Friedman, and D. McKenzie, (2009) “Mental health patterns and consequences: Results from survey data in five developing countries”, World Bank Economic Review, forthcoming.
Maccini, S., and D. Yang, (2009) “Under the weather: Health, schooling, and economic consequences of early-life rainfall”, American Economic Review, 99(3):1006-26.
Stevenson, B., and J. Wolfers, (2008) “Economic growth and subjective well-being; Reassessing the Easterlin paradox”, NBER working paper 14282.