Ipsos’ annual World Mental Health Day survey shows public perceptions and experiences of mental health. Topics covered include: how we talk about mental health issues, the relationship to physical well-being, and how health care services are perceived in each country.
For the first time, mental health (cited by a global country average of 36%) ranks higher than cancer (34%) when people are asked to consider the most important health problems.
More than half (58%) of those surveyed say they “mostly” think about their mental health. On this list, Mexico is among the top 10 countries that say they think about it regularly with 66% of those surveyed.
Demographic analysis shows us that the people who are most likely to think about their mental health “more often” are those under the age of 35.
Mental health versus physical health: which has priority?
76% of global respondents say that mental health and physical health are equally important. But only 33% of those say their country’s health services treat them the same way. In Mexico, 8 out of 10 participants considered mental and physical health to be equally important, ranking first in 10 of the countries recognizing this.
The perceived importance of mental and physical well-being appears to cross borders, with nearly 8 out of 10 in the global average of countries ranking evenly (76%).
Experienced and aware health services
On the topic of how the health system in each country perceives the importance of this? Only 24% of Mexicans surveyed believe that mental and physical health is considered equally important by the health system.
On the global average of countries, a third of countries (33%) believe that they both receive the same treatment. Only 12% on average believe mental health is given a higher priority; This contrasts with the 41% who say their health system focuses more on physical health.
The country with the highest imbalance by a significant amount is Portugal (73% say physical health is given more importance than mental health). The countries with the highest perception that mental health is more important than physical health are also the same countries with the highest percentage saying mental health should be given higher priority than physical health: India (27%), Saudi Arabia (25%) and the United States (24%).
Experiences over the past year
The effects of stress on daily life are among the most common mental health problems worldwide, with 63% saying they have (at least once) felt stressed to the point that it had an impact on the way they live their daily life in the past year.
Stress also made 59% of those surveyed believe that at some point they couldn’t handle things and 39% because of it, they weren’t able to go to work at least once.
These are the results of a 34-country survey conducted by Ipsos on its Global Advisor online platform between July and August 2022.
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