06/23/2021

Employers Should Heed Workers' Mental Health Needs

Mental illness often interferes with work

Health policy usually focuses on the delivery of health care. But in many situations, health care alone is not enough to meaningfully improve people’s lives. One of the most common situations in which this is the case is mental illness. Nearly one in five adults, or 51.5 million people, in the United States meets diagnostic criteria for a mental illness, which can impair functioning across a spectrum of severity, ranging from mild to moderate to severe. Yet, despite advances in the diagnosis and treatment of these conditions, and considerable progress on including mental health care in health insurance, people with mental illness—including those with moderate illnesses such as depression or anxiety—continue to be tenuously connected to work and, hence, to full participation in society. 

Working With Mental Illness

Mental illnesses pose difficulties for workers because their symptoms can interfere with essential workplace skills, such as participating effectively in teams, interacting with customers and co-workers, and maintaining concentration. For people with severe illnesses such as schizophrenia or bipolar disorder—about 2 percent to 3 percent of the population—these symptoms can be disabling. But the negative effects on employment of moderate mental illness, which affects 7.5 percent to 9.0 percent of the US population, are also substantial. In the mid-2010s, for example, 77 percent of those without a mental illness participated in the labor force, but only 55 percent of those with moderate mental illness were working or actively looking for work. People with moderate mental illness who do work may have reduced productivity or interpersonal problems at their jobs, and their symptoms may lead them to miss work. The overall effect of these job challenges is that people with moderate mental illnesses have lower earnings and accumulate less work experience and fewer skillsover their lives.

These labor market consequences are particularly troubling because we already have on hand tools that would allow us to address them much more effectively. Medical treatment alone isn’t enough—but we can significantly mitigate the negative workplace consequences of illness using a combination of clinical, workplace, and policy interventions. These interventions integrate innovative programs that combine clinical care and workplace supports; workplace accommodations, which have been required under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for 30 years; and comprehensive benefits, including health insurance coverage and paid leave. Together, this framework could go beyond “usual care” and improve both mental health and workplace productivity for this population.

Please select this link to read the complete article from HealthAffairs.