The impact of population mental health on economic growth: an analysis of interrelations

Abstract

The link between the mental well-being of the population and macroeconomic dynamics has long remained at the periphery of human-capital research, yielding priority to somatic health and education. Meanwhile, the accumulation of anxiety and depressive conditions within working-age cohorts alters the returns to labour faster than the indicators of the psychiatric service manage to register, generating a divergence between formal statistics and the actual burden on the economy. The aim of the work is to quantify the contribution of poor mental health among the employed population to the underproduction of value added and to compare the scale of losses with the potential return on preventive investment. Horizontal and vertical analysis of morbidity time series, factor decomposition of the increase in care-seeking, an author’s model converting the prevalence of disorders into labour equivalents, and scenario modelling of investment returns are applied. Drawing on data from Rosstat and the Ministry of Health of Russia for 2020-2024, it is shown that the primary incidence of mental disorders rose by 18,0% and non-psychotic conditions by 21,5%, while the dispensary contingent contracted; retail sales of antidepressants reached 23,6 million packages by 2025. The model estimate of the underproduced value added amounts to about 1,455 billion roubles, or roughly 0,72% of gross domestic product. The faster growth of borderline conditions relative to severe forms indicates that the principal economic burden shifts towards the mass, poorly recorded segment, and that the greatest effect is achieved through early outpatient prevention among the employed rather than through expansion of inpatient psychiatry.