Cost of Mental Illness

Cost of Mental Illness – Who Pays and Who Receives
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Cost of Mental Illness – Who Pays and Who Receives
Mental illnesses are widespread across the different countries of the world including the developed countries. In their article, Schofield et al. (2011) examine the national as well as personal costs of mental illnesses in Australia. They opine that mental health conditions have the potential of interrupting people’s ability to take part in the labour force and thus pose a significant burden to both the state and individuals. In the “Background” section of the article, Schofield et al. (2011) report that mental health illnesses in Australia are the third largest burden to the state when all the diseases affecting the population are considered. They add that in the year 2007, approximately half of the inhabitants aged between 16 and 84 years of Australia experienced one or more mental health problem in their lifetime. Schofield et al. (2011) state that the prevalence of mental illnesses in Australia is quite high and that the economic costs of this prevalence are equally high.
Schofield et al. (2011) opine that apart from having a huge national cost, mental illnesses also come with huge personal economic costs. They point out that mentally ill people have for a long time remained most marginalised as well as disadvantaged society members. The authors also highlight the impact that mental illnesses have on the employment of individuals. They state that the participation rates of mentally ill individuals in the labour force are generally poor.

Schofield et al. (2011) go ahead to compare the unemployment rates for the mentally ill individuals in Australia, UK and the US. They report that in the UK, the unemployment rates stand at between 61 and 73 percent while in the US it is between 75 and 90 percent. In Australia, it is reported that the unemployment rates for the mentally ill individuals are three times higher than that of healthy individuals. The researchers state that one of the many effects of mental illnesses is forcing people into early retirement. Schofield et al. (2011) state that despite many people being forced into early retirement due to mental illnesses, no comprehensive study has been done to establish the economic cost of this outcome on both the state and the individual.
To establish the costs of mental illnesses at both the personal and national costs in Australia, Schofield et al. (2011) carried out a cross-sectional analysis using two microsimulation models namely Health & Wealth MOD and the STINMOD. They report that the first model, Health & Wealth MOD was based on information from “the Survey of Disability, Ageing and Carers carried out by the Bureau of Statistics of Australia” while the second model was based on the savings as well as incomes of the participants. According to Schofield et al. (2011), the purpose of the STINMOD was to quantify lost income costs for both the state and personal level due to early retirement linked to mental illnesses for Australians between the age of 45 and 65 in 2009. In their findings, Schofield et al. (2011) report that the national aggregate costs that the government incurs as a result of early retirement for the mentally ill persons in Australia as of 2009 stood at $278 million in the form of lost revenue from income taxation and $407 million in extra transfer payments. They conclude that both individuals and the state have to bear considerable costs as a result of mental illnesses.
All in all, the article is well structured, with the authors using simple terms and phrases that readers at the different academic levels will find easy to understand. The authors refer to a wide range of academic resources, a fact that increases the credibility of the article. However, the study was based on the Australian population whose characteristics are quite different from the populations in other countries. This means that the findings from the study cannot be generalised to other populations residing in other countries.

Reference
Schofield, D. J., Shrestha, R. N., Percival, R., Passey, M. E., Callander, E. J., & Kelly, S. J. (2011). The personal and national costs of mental health conditions: impacts on income, taxes, government support payments due to lost labour force participation. BMC Psychiatry, 11(1), 72.