Macroeconomic Dynamics and Mental Health

In recent years we have seen a growing evidence of how mental ill-health can have a huge economic impact. However, we have a limited understanding of the effects that general economic circumstances can exert on mental health. Despite this limited evidence, governments (and budget-holders in general) are putting increasing emphasis on economic data to support their decisions. In this sense, cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis and related techniques are often used to inform the design of mental health policy strategies.
On the other hand, one can infer that economic disadvantage is associated with a greater likelihood of mental illness, possibly through greater exposure to risk factors (i.e., social exclusion) and poorer access to protective factors (i.e., education), or a complex downward spiral (i.e., entanglement of poverty, treatment costs, employment difficulty). A possible evidence of this is the fact that The European Psychiatric Association issued guidance on mental health and economic crises in Europe highlighting the need for policy approaches able to tackle the issue effectively.
The project is related to this aspect as it intends to investigate the relevance of complimentary methods to inform mental health policy strategies. Using (secondary) panel data, the project wants to investigate the capacity of macroeconomic indicators to forecast mental health dynamics. Finding evidence of relations between macroeconomic trends (inflation, GDP/unemployment, public finance, interest rates, etc.) and mental health, given the ready and easy access of macroeconomic data for all institutions, will provide a simple and cost effective tool to design effective health policies.