Mental ill-health can have devastating effects on individuals, families and communities, with one in every two people experiencing a mental illness in their lifetime. Symptoms of anxiety and depression as much as doubled at the height of COVID-19 pandemic, and a confluence ofmultiple emerging and enduring crises – such as the cost-of-living and climate crises – continue to heighten the risk factors for poor mental health.

Mental ill-health also weighs heavily on societies and economies. The economic burden of mental ill-health can rise to up to 4% of GDP. Individuals experiencing mental-ill health have poorer educational, employment, and physical health outcomes than those in good mental health. Yet, historically, as much as two thirds of people seeking mental health support reported difficulties getting it.

OECD work on mental health looks at deepening understanding of the population burden of mental ill-health, improving mental health promotion and ill-health prevention, measuring the performance of mental health systems, recommending best practices across health, employment, education and social welfare policies, and promoting a more integrated approach to mental health policy.

A good mental health system helps people stay in good mental health, and connects those in need to appropriate support to manage their mental health condition or even fully recover from it. The OECD’s Mental Health Systems Performance Benchmark is a framework for understanding and strengthening mental health performance by identifying priority policy priorities for mental health systems, which are underpinned by internationally comparable indicators to track performance. This approach is set to grow stronger still in the coming years as more data become available, and the Benchmark is updated.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of how well countries are delivering the policies and services that matter for mental health system performance, and highlights recent reforms countries have taken to strengthen mental health performance.

The OECD’s mental health Benchmark revealed significant gaps in mental health system performance. Although available data point to some recovery in population mental health as the pandemic situation improved, it also shows that levels of mental distress remain elevated, and well above 2019 levels. Vulnerable population groups, who often struggle to get access to the mental health support they need, may be particularly exposed. Other significant challenges lie ahead: already, there are rising levels of climate change anxiety, especially amongst youth; rapid demographic change will transform to the impact of aging societies on the mental health system demand, with at least one in four older adults experience some mental disorder; and understanding of the impact and opportunities of increased digital connectivity and tools on mental health status and care delivery remains poor. New OECD work is exploring these four global megatrends – inequalities, climate change, aging and digitalization – to understand the new challenges and opportunities they will bring to both mental health status and mental health systems.

In addition, new OECD work is identifying best practice public health policies to promote good mental health, and prevent mental ill-health in European countries. In a second phase this work will leverage the OECDs Strategic Public Health Planning model to assess best practices identified in OECD countries as well as a range of mental health interventions implemented at-scale.

• Read the press release: Improving mental healthcare key to COVID-19 pandemic recovery / L’amélioration des soins de santé mentale jouera un rôle déterminant dans la reprise au sortir de la crise du COVID-19
• Read the report A New Benchmark for Mental Health Systems
• Find out more about the OECD Mental Health Performance Framework

OECD work helps countries improve their understanding of population mental health needs, and the quality, outcomes and experiences of people using mental health services.

The OECD Patient-Reported Indicator Surveys (PaRIS) initiative aims to develop international benchmarks of health system performance as reported by patients themselves, and includes a focus on collecting the experiences and outcomes of users of mental healthcare services.

This new international survey focuses on patients with one or more chronic conditions, including mental health conditions such as depression or anxiety, who are living in the community and who are largely treated in primary care or other ambulatory care settings.

• OECD Health Working Paper #135 Establishing standards for assessing patient-reported outcomes and experiences of mental health care in OECD countries (2022)