Foreword

Mental health is increasingly being recognised as a public priority in today’s societies and economies. Understanding and mapping both its positive and negative dimensions is key to informing a number of public policies and actions by the private sector and civil society. This report aims to support national statistical offices and other data producers in collecting high-quality measures of population mental health outcomes in a more frequent, consistent and internationally harmonised manner. It documents existing measurement practice across OECD countries, discusses the advantages and limitations of available measurement tools, and recommends priority measures (for both mental ill-health and positive mental states) to adopt in household, social and health surveys. While this report does not present fully-fledged measurement guidelines, it complements past OECD WISE Centre work aiming to advance the statistical agenda on people’s well-being, including guidelines on subjective well-being; trust; and the quality of the working environment. This publication is the first of two reports prepared as part of a special assessment of mental health and well-being in the context of the OECD How’s Life? publication series. The second report applies a well-being lens to population mental health by examining its interlinkages with the different economic, social, environmental and relational dimensions of people’s lives as exemplified by the OECD Well-being Framework.

The report was prepared by the OECD WISE Centre. The authoring team consisted of Lara Fleischer (Chapters 1 and 2) and Jessica Mahoney (Chapters 2 and 3). Jessica Mahoney also led the statistical work for this publication. Manuela Grabosch, Muriel Levy and Nikita Arora are gratefully acknowledged for the background research that informed various sections of this report. Lara Fleischer led the project and content editing under the supervision of Carrie Exton, who provided additional editing alongside Marco Mira d’Ercole and Romina Boarini. The report was published under the direction of Romina Boarini. Martine Zaida has provided essential communications support throughout the project. Cassandra Morley prepared and formatted the manuscript for publication, Patrick Hamm copy edited the work and Sonia Primot designed the front cover.

The report has benefitted from valuable comments provided by national delegates to the OECD Committee on Statistics and Statistical Policy and the OECD Health Committee. Their contributions and advice are very gratefully acknowledged.

We are also grateful to many colleagues in the OECD and externally for their help, comments, insights and data, and edits either on draft text or in relation to specific queries. They include, but are not limited to:

• Doron Wijker, Christopher Prinz, Shunta Takino and Emily Hewlett (OECD Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Directorate);

• The members of the Informal Advisory Group supporting this workstream:

  • Adam Coutts (Weatherhead Centre for International Affairs, Harvard University Senior Research Fellow, Magdalene College, University of Cambridge)

  • Alexandra Lazaro, Cath Davies, Jess Rackham, Lily Makurah and Linda Bullivant (Department of Health and Social Care, United Kingdom)

  • Amelia Walters (Board Member, Victorian Collaborative Centre for Mental Health and Wellbeing)

  • Andrew Steptoe (Professor of Psychology and Epidemiology, Head of the Department of Behavioural Science and Health at University College London)

  • Angeline Ferdinand (Research Officer, Centre for Health Policy, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne)

  • Bernard Jacob (Federal Coordinator of the Belgian Mental Health Care Reforms, Belgian Federal Public Service - Public Health)

  • Caroline Cohrdes (Mental Health Unit, Robert Koch Institute)

  • Catherine Carty (UNESCO Chair project manager)

  • Claire Gibbons (Senior Program Officer, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation)

  • Daniel Hugh Chisholm (Programme Manager for Mental Health, World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe)

  • David Finch (Assistant Director Healthy Lives Team, The Health Foundation)

  • Elisabeth Ng Langdal (Executive Director, Mental Health and Human Rights Info)

  • Emma Lawrance and Jessica Newberry Le Vay (Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London)

  • Fredrik Lindencrona (Lead for Strategic Improvement, Swedish Association of Local Authorities and Regions)

  • George Ploubidis (Professor of Population Health and Statistics, University College London Social Research Institute)

  • Gregory Bratman (Assistant Professor, Director Environment and Well-being Labs, University of Washington)

  • Hannes Kröger (Former Head of the SocPsych-MH Unit, German Institute for Economic Research)

  • Harold Alan Pincus (Professor and Vice Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Co-Director, Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research, Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University)

  • Hedinn Unnsteinsson (Senior Policy Analyst, Prime Minister’s Office of Iceland, Chairperson of the Icelandic Mental Health Alliance)

  • Katie Hayes (Senior Policy Analyst, Health Canada)

  • Layla McCay (Director, Centre for Urban Design and Mental Health)

  • Lene Søvold (Clinical Psychologist, Mental Health Advisor & Researcher)

  • Luca Bernardi (Senior Lecturer Politics, University of Liverpool)

  • Margaret Walker and Peter Falkai (Executive Director and President, European Psychiatric Association)

  • Patricio V Márquez (Senior Associate, Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, former World Bank Group Lead Public Health Specialist)

  • Richard Layard (Co-Director, Community Wellbeing Programme, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics)

  • Ronni M. Greenwood (Social-Community Psychologist and Lecturer in the Psychology Department, University of Limerick)

  • Sarah Hinde (Acting Assistant Secretary of the Mental Health Data and Evidence Taskforce, Australian Government Department of Health)

  • Shekhar Saxena (Professor of the Practice of Global Mental Health at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health)

  • Tyler Norris (MDiv, CEO, Well Being Trust)

  • Ziggi Ivan Santini (Researcher, Danish National Institute of Public Health);

• Participants of a project webinar organised for national statistical offices on 28 April 2022:

  • Adriana Pérez Amador and Olinca Páez (INEGI, Mexico)

  • Alessandra Tinto and Lidia Gargiulo (ISTAT, Italy)

  • Camélia St-Denis, Emma Howieson, Isabelle Lévesque, Joie Huggins and Leah Smith (Statistics Canada)

  • Chika Arita (Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, Japan)

  • Claudio Peter and Daniela Schuler (Swiss Health Observatory)

  • Emilie Hegelund (Statistics Denmark)

  • Kali Kong (U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis)

  • Kelly Sabbe (Statistics Belgium)

  • Dace Krievkalne (Central Statistical Bureau, Latvia)

  • Guy Weber (Health Directorate, Luxembourg)

  • Lydia Gisle (Belgian Institute for Health)

  • Matthew Montgomery (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

  • Mónika Földvári (Hungarian Central Statistical Office)

  • Naama Rotem (Central Bearau of Statistics, Israel)

  • Sara Holsbrink (Public Health Agency, Sweden)

  • Rosario Gonzalez Garcia (INE, Spain)

  • Sunhye Choi (Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency).

Support for this report was provided in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The views expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation.