Regulating the mental health impacts of business activity would help the Government to achieve its health mission and more besides, a new report from Centre for Mental Health has said today.
The charity’s report finds that business activities affect people’s mental health in many different ways. Good jobs, safe and secure homes, and healthy products can boost people’s mental health. Low paid work, unaffordable or unsafe housing, pollution, and health-harming products, by contrast, put our mental health at risk. Government regulation can help businesses to become mentally healthier as part of a wider approach to improving the nation’s health and wellbeing.
The report finds that low pay, poor working conditions, air pollution and insecure housing harm people’s mental health. That puts people at greater risk of smoking or of alcohol-related harm. Harms related to unhealthy food and gambling are also concentrated in areas facing the highest levels of deprivation. Despite this, it is often argued that harmful consumption is an individual’s responsibility rather than something requiring regulation.
The report argues that effective business regulation can help to improve mental health. Measures to ensure fair pay and a living wage, to reduce air pollution, and to protect tenants in privately rented housing are just as important to mental health as creating a smokefree future and regulating the advertising of unhealthy foods or gambling.
Centre for Mental Health chief executive Andy Bell said: “Mental ill health costs £300 billion a year in England alone. Helping businesses to be mentally healthier could bring some of that cost down as well as creating a healthier society and stronger economy.
“The Government has made a positive start by introducing reforms to boost workers’ and renters’ rights and to create a smokefree future. It could go further with reforms such as minimum unit pricing on alcohol, restricting the promotion of unhealthy products, and introducing a mental health policy test to ensure future decisions are made with the public’s wellbeing in mind.”
