Mental Health 'worse' in North after pandemic
A new report - which involved University of York - has been released
Last updated 25th Jul 2022
Mental health in the North was more badly affected by the pandemic than elsewhere in England, a new report has found.
Experts have estimated that the mental health crisis in the North has cost the UK economy £2 billion, on top of the losses caused by Covid-19.
A report by the Northern Health Science Alliance (NHSA) said the findings are more evidence that the pandemic had an uneven affect of different regions.
The NHSA members include the University of York.
Their research found:
- People in the North under 35 were more likely to have developed a psychiatric disorder over the course of the pandemic, an increase of 2.5% compared to a reduction of 1.3% in rest of England.
- There was a 12% increase in the numbers of anti-depressants prescribed during the pandemic in the North. During the pandemic, people living in the North were prescribed more anti-depressants proportionately than those in the rest of England (5.3 compared to 4.3).
- Before the-pandemic, people from ethnic minorities and those from a white British background had similar mental health scores, Over the pandemic people from ethnic minorities had a larger fall in their average mental health (1.63 points compared to 0.87) and this was greater for those of an ethnic minority in the North (a fall of 2.34 compared to 1.45 for the rest of England).
- Women from ethnic minorities in the North had the worst mental health in the country. Their mental health scores fell by 10% at the start of the pandemic and their scores were 4% lower throughout the pandemic.
- Mental health fell equally in the North and the rest of the country during the pandemic (5% decrease), but it recovered more quickly in the rest of the country (to 1.3% decrease) than in the North (2% decrease).
- The report conservatively estimates the reductions in mental health in the North during the two years of the pandemic have cost the UK economy £2bn in lost economic productivity. This is £2bn more which has been lost than if the North had suffered the same mental health outcomes as the rest of the country.
- The gap between the lowest and highest earners increased during the pandemic and remains large.
Dr Luke Munford, Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at the University of Manchester and NIHR ARC Greater Manchester, who also co-authored the report, said: “Our mental health is important for us as individuals but is also important to our society. We have shown, again, that the pandemic was not equal – people in the North of England fared worse. We need to act urgently to address this or these unfair inequalities will grow and as already hard hit individuals and us as a society will unfairly suffer.”
The report urges that more needs to be done to address inequalities in mental health in the North, if ‘levelling up’ is to be achieved.
Among its key recommendations, the report’s authors are calling for an increase in NHS and local authority resources and service provision for mental health in the North, along with an increase to the existing NHS health inequalities weighting within the NHS funding formula.
Hannah Davies, Health Inequalities Lead at the NHSA and report co-author, said: “Increased deprivation in the North of England has added to a decline in mental health in the North of England over the course of the pandemic.
“The reasons for this are many: increased time spent in lockdowns, the type of work people in the North do but the driving factor is poverty.
“To reverse these outcomes immediate action should be taken to provide funds to mental health suppliers proportionate to the need in those areas and measure to reduce deprivation – particularly as the cost of living crisis tightens its grip further on the most vulnerable.”
The NHSA convenes the Northern Mental Health Innovation Network, which brings together world class clinical, academic and industry experts across the North of England and showcases the North’s excellence in the field of mental health.