Measuring Population Mental Health
Good mental health is a vital part of people’s well-being, and the COVID-19 pandemic brought renewed attention to its importance. However, discussions so far have not focused sufficiently on how governments should best monitor it at the broader population level, and on how to consider both mental ill-health and positive mental states. This report supports 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 to adopt in household, social and health surveys. Measuring Population Mental Health is the first of two reports as part of an assessment of mental health and well-being in the context of the OECD's work on measuring well-being.
Measuring population mental health: Tools and current country practice
A variety of tools are available for monitoring population mental health, ranging from administrative data to different types of survey questions. Although many OECD countries began collecting new or additional mental health data during COVID-19, official data producers were already active in this space well before the pandemic started. However, there is room for improvement by increasing the frequency of (survey) data collection, diversifying the types of indicators used to cover the full spectrum of mental health, and expanding the international harmonisation of existing measures. Here, data collectors could: (1) beyond screening tools focusing on symptoms of depression, expand use to those including symptoms of anxiety as outcome measures; (2) move towards collecting harmonised information on affective and eudaimonic aspects of positive mental health; and (3) explore using single-item questions on general mental health status across surveys.
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