World Mental Health Day 2019
October 10, 2019
October 10 will be World Mental Health Day. This year’s theme is focus on suicide prevention. Suicide specifically, and mental and emotional health more broadly, are important issues for global companies because:
- Close to 800,000 people die from suicide each year. Suicide is the second leading cause of death in 15-29-year-olds and 18th for all ages.
- 79% of suicides occurred in low- and middle- income countries in 2016—important markets for employers and locations where mental health treatment is often in short supply.
- Researchers expect that absent improvements in mental health care, between 2016 and 2030 more than twelve billion working days will be lost due to depression and anxiety across the 36 largest countries in the world. The global annual cost of lost productivity is U.S. $1.15 trillion.
- More than 300 million people suffer from depression, which is the leading cause of disability around the world. About 8% of the global burden of disease for depression is attributed to occupational risks.
- Fewer than half of individuals with depression receive effective treatment. In some countries, that number is as low as 10%, often because of lack of access or stigma.
- Harmful alcohol use causes 3.3 million deaths per year; about 31 million people worldwide have a drug use disorder.
- Most low- and middle- income countries devote less than 1% of their total health expenditure to mental health. Combined with a lack of community resources in numerous locations, this means that employer-sponsored programs may be the only treatment access point for many employees.
What can employers do?
Employers can play an important role in supporting positive mental health in the workforce by providing culturally relevant mental health benefits, programs that promote work/life balance, employee assistance services, peer support and referral programs and educational campaigns that combat stigma and encourage mental health treatment when needed.
Additional Business Group Resources
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- Improving Treatment for Substance Abuse Disorder (Addiction) Virtual Summit Slides
- Mental Health Benefits Around the World Survey Results - Employer Programs and Challenges
- Tackling Mental Health Stigma Virtual Summit Slides: Guiding Principles for Impactful Strategies
- Employee Assistance Programs Outside the U.S.: A Toolkit for Employers
- Mental Health Strategy and Anti-Stigma Campaigns Survey Results
- Mental Health at Work Infographic
- Innovation Insights - Mental Health
- Mental Health Apps: Considerations for a Global Workforce
- Suicide: An Increasing Concern for Global Employers
- Survey Report: Promoting Positive Mental Health and Emotional Well-Being Globally
- Health & Benefits Benchmarking Call Summary: Addressing Mental Health Globally
- Mental Health: Going Beyond EAP
- Survey Report: Global Employee Assistance Programs
- Resilience: A Business Imperative
- Work-Related Stress: Q&A for Corporate HQ Staff, Managers (Word file) and Employees (Word file)
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For the full listing of United Nations-sponsored observances, please visit its website. For sample emails about past and future health observances visit our website.
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