The UK is facing a serious mental health crisis – every week one in six people in England will experience a common mental health problem, such as depression or anxiety. The knock-on impact of this costs our economy at least £118 billion a year due to factors like lost productivity and economic inactivity.
It’s essential the UK government adopts preventative policies that address the root causes of mental health issues, and help mitigate known risk factors; including an individual’s family environment, workplace, educational setting or neighbourhood.
In the first of two papers, supported by The Centre for Emotional Health, this paper introduces the concept of emotional health and explores the role it can play as a protective factor for mental health. Our findings show the state of our emotional health is a key pillar for maintaining good mental health by strengthening our resilience, relationships and communities.
This project is part of Demos’s ‘prevention in practice’ series, which is a series of policy papers outlining how we can bring about a preventative state across different policy areas.