As we age, our socio-economic status would have an impact on our mental health.
- Worldwide, one in eight people has a mental disorder in 2019.
- Most patients do not have access to effective care.
“A mental disorder is characterized by a clinically significant impairment in an individual’s cognitive status, emotion regulation, or behavior. It is usually accompanied by a sense of distress or functional impairments in important areas, noted the World Health Organization (WHO). Recently, researchers from the University of Helsinki (Finland) revealed that adults from disadvantaged backgrounds were more likely to develop a mental disorder later in life than those from wealthy backgrounds.
More than 1.2 million Finns have been tracked
In order to reach this conclusion, they carried out a study published in the journal Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health. Their objective ? Find a link between socioeconomic status and the risk of suffering from the most common mental disorders, such as substance abuse, schizophrenia, mood disorders and anxiety. For the purposes of the work, Finnish scientists analyzed data from 1,268,768 people born between 1966 and 1986 and living in Finland when they turned 30. “The level of education, professional status and total personal income were taken into account”, specified the team.
Mental disorder: the unemployed were twice as likely to suffer from it
According to the results, just over a quarter, or 26.1%, of the participants were diagnosed with a mental disorder later in life. The authors found that low socioeconomic status at age 30 was consistently associated with a higher risk of developing a mental disorder, even after controlling for common family characteristics and a history of mental disorders. “Diagnosis-specific analyzes showed that the associations were significantly stronger for substance abuse or schizophrenia spectrum disorders,” can we read in the works.
According to the researchers, at age 52, 58% of people with low education at age 30 were diagnosed with a mental disorder, compared to 45% and 36% of participants who had completed secondary or higher education. Compared to volunteers with a job, not being in the labor force or being unemployed was associated with a two-fold increased risk of a future diagnosis of a mental disorder.
“Decisions favoring social mobility or allocating more preventive measures for people with a higher status socio-economic position could alleviate the burden of mental disorders in society”, concluded the authors in a statement.
