Pandemic boosts resilience and breaks down mental health taboos, finds AXA study

Covid-19 has caused widespread damage to mental wellbeing but has increased personal resilience, finds a new study from AXA, which reveals 36% of 11,000 people polled now feel more able to deal with difficult situations. Publishing its new annual Mind Health and Wellbeing study, AXA says Covid-19 has also helped to remove judgements about mental health, with the pressures of the pandemic felt almost universally. “This globally shared experience has helped sweep away some of the stigma and taboo that has for generations kept mental illness under wraps. There is now a wide recognition of the need to talk about these issues,” AXA says. At the same time, the survey, conducted with IPSOS, found that just 44% of respondents from 11 countries in Europe and Asia said they have felt happy or experienced joy in the past year. Respondents in China, Switzerland and Spain were happier than average at 57%, 54% and 50% respectively, while fewer respondents were happy in Japan at just 27%, Italy at 37% and France at 39%. Some 37% of those polled said their employer provides good support for mind health and wellbeing. Lower levels of support were reported in Japan at 20% and Hong Kong at 32%, with highest satisfaction in China (54%), followed by Switzerland (43%) and Ireland (42%). “The approach to promoting mind health in the workplace is patchy at best,” AXA says. Some 37% of respondents said their country’s public health system provided adequate mental health services, although this was lower in Italy at 24% and the UK at 23%. AXA says there is a “major role for companies and healthcare systems in improving prevention, support, and care around mind health and wellbeing”, with the economic impact of mental illness accounting for up to 4.2% of GDP. Workers offered support by their employers are twice as likely to thrive than those without employer support, AXA says. Antimo Perretta, CEO of AXA Europe and Latin America, says mind health and wellbeing is “too often neglected by governments and brushed under the carpet by fear and taboo”. “As insurers, we believe strongly that our duty is not confined to just stepping in when things go wrong, and providing the funds and assistance people need to pick up the pieces. When it comes to mind health, AXA is taking a holistic approach, focused on being a positive force for human progress, empowering people to identify and deal with problems long before they take a toll on their mental wellbeing,” Perretta adds. Alongside the study, AXA has launched a Mind Health Index that will measure and track changes in populations and different social groups, including across generations, over time. AXA’s index categorised respondents into four classes of mind health. One third of respondents, and the largest group, fell into the ‘getting by’ band. Less than one quarter of the poll hit the ‘flourishing mental health’ band, although this was higher for Swiss respondents at 36%. The UK recorded the highest proportion of people in the ‘struggling’ category at 24% with just 18% in the ‘flourishing’ band. AXA says the UK experiences more mental ill health than any other country in the survey. The UK was also the in the bottom four among those respondents who believe the pandemic has improved their resilience.

Pandemic boosts resilience and breaks down mental health taboos, finds AXA study

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