The COVID-19 crisis has seriously damaged mental health all over the world. A high price has been paid by many children who’ve missed out on time with friends and school, and many of the elderly have felt isolated. The challenges and solutions are well documented by the International Public Policy Observatory on COVID.
But the crisis is also shining a light on the stresses faced by employees. In the UK, new evidence on health workers shows that nearly half of those working in intensive care units suffered from severe anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, or harmful use of alcohol. There may be similar patterns in other groups on the front-line, but we just don’t know. And this is highlighting a bigger problem in how we look at mental health. It is nearly always seen as an individual issue requiring individual solutions. Yet in reality it’s as much a problem for groups and organizations.
This is an excerpt from the article Here’s how your mental health depends on collective wellbeing by Geoff Mulgan.
This article is a part of a special series on the connection between inner well-being and social change, in partnership with The Wellbeing Project, Stanford Social Innovation Review, Schwab Foundation at the World Economic Forum, and Skoll Foundation.
