Mental Health and Work

Mental ill-health can lead to poor work performance, high sickness absence and reduced labour market participation, resulting in considerable costs for society. Improving labour market participation of people with mental health problems requires well-integrated policies and services across the education, employment, health and social sectors. This paper provides examples of policy initiatives from 10 OECD countries for integrated services. Outcomes and strengths and weaknesses of the policy initiatives are presented, resulting in the following main conclusions for future integrated mental health and work policies and services: More rigorous implementation and evaluation of integrated policies is necessary to improve labour market outcomes. Implementation cannot be left to the discretion of stakeholders only; Better financial incentives and clearer obligations and guidelines need to be provided to stakeholders and professionals to participate in integrated service delivery; Each sector has a responsibility to assure integrated services in line with client needs, in turn requiring much better knowledge about the needs of clients with a mental illness; More integrated provision of services within each sector – e.g. through employment advice brought into the mental health system and psychological expertise brought into employment services – appears to be the easiest and most cost-effective approach.