Mental Health In The UK Is About To Get Worse, And Inequality Will Have A Lot To Do With It

The UK government's mini-budget has been the subject of much criticism lately. Its impact on the stock and bond markets and the value of the pound is hardly news. As a clinical psychiatrist, an issue I find worrying but barely addressed is its potential impact on the mental health of British society. In particular, I am concerned about cutting higher tax rates, their impact on income inequality and their impact on people's mental health.

Cutting the basic rate of income tax from 20% to 19% would have very little impact on low and middle earners, saving 31 million people an average of £170 a year. But removing the top rate of tax of 45% for those earning £150,000 or more would see the very rich get more money.

Those earning £1 million a year will save over £55,000 a year from April 2023. Given that the average (median) full-time UK wage is £31,461 (before tax, pensions and social security deductions ), this represents quite a reward for earning the highest and lowest rates for low-income earners at a time of record inflation and rising energy bills.

Whatever your view of the evidence for a downward economic trend, you should know what the research has to say about the impact of income inequality on health. The book The Spirit Level, published in 2009 by British economists Kate Beckett and Richard Wilkinson, shows that in developed countries, the widening gap between rich and poor has a significant impact on things like obesity, child mortality , prison sentences and death rates. .murder.

Countries with low levels of inequality, such as Japan and Spain, generally have fewer problems. Countries with higher levels of inequality, such as Great Britain and the United States, generally have higher rates.

This connection also applies to mental health. The following illustrations from the book illustrate this relationship and give a striking picture.

The relationship between the level of income inequality and the proportion of the population with mental disorders

A World Health Organization study of 65 countries found that developed countries with a higher genetic index (an economic measure of income inequality) had higher rates of depression over a one-year period after adjusting for demographic variables such as age. and education. The most unequal countries have a 50% higher prevalence of depression than the least unequal countries.

Of course, just because two things are linked doesn't mean one causes the other, but one study found strong evidence of a causal link between income inequality and health. For example, changes in income distribution predict subsequent changes in public health, not the other way around.

The gap between rich and poor in the UK has grown steadily since the late 1970s, although it narrows slightly in 2021. At a time of stagnant inflation and wages, the poor are getting poorer. But the rich are getting richer and CEO pay at the UK's 100 biggest companies will rise by 39% by 2021. The latest Budget will widen the gap between rich and poor. Along with the fact that the recession is expected to lead to poor mental health, debt is likely to rise and people with mental health problems are more than three times more likely to develop mental illness, have unsecured debts such as bills services or credit cards. and it is clear who will bear the brunt of the mental health crisis for living expenses and the final budget.

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Citation : UK mental health on the verge of decline and inequality will have a big part to play in it (2022 September 30) Retrieved September 30, 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022- 09-mental health-uk -worst-inequality .html

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