Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities
Gap between rich and poor damages mental health
Evidence released by the Mental Health Foundation shows the impact of the poverty gap to both individual and collective mental health.
The report, Mental Health, Resilience and Inequalities, shows how the gap between rich and poor affects the mental health of individuals by causing psychological and physiological changes.
It also argues that mental health is key to understanding wider health and social issues.
Our report argues that mental health is the lynchpin between economic and social conditions. Poor mental health experienced by individuals is a significant cause of wider social and health problems, including:
low levels of educational achievement and work productivity
higher levels of physical disease and mortality
violence, relationship breakdown and poor community cohesion
In contrast, good mental health leads to better physical health, healthier lifestyles, improved productivity and educational attainment and lower levels of crime and violence.
The report says that reducing inequalities must be seen as an integral part of economic development, and recommends that, given the central importance of mental health to the wider functioning of society, all future public policy is assessed for its ‘mental health impact’.
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