Richard Layard über die gesellschaftlichen Kosten von Depression

Richard Layard: ‘Money is not the only thing affecting people’s happiness’

Sunday 13 July 2014 www.independent.co.uk/.../richard-layard-money-is...

The CV: Professor Richard Layard

Born: 1934

Educated: Eton College (King’s Scholar), Cambridge University, London School of Economics

Made: a life peer, Baron Layard of Highgate

He is: a Labour peer but his wife, Baroness Meacher, a peer in her own right, is a crossbencher

Career: Senior research officer to Robbins Committee on Higher Education; Labour economist; founder of the Centre for Economic Performance at LSE; developed “happiness economics”, wrote in 2005, Happiness: Lessons from a New Science; in 2014, co-author of Thrive, advocates expansion of treatment of mental health to help individual and national well-being and economy.

How could we become a happier nation? One pioneering economist has spent the best part of a decade arguing that we simply must find an answer to this question – gaining the support of David Cameron, who backed the notion of happiness as “the new GDP”.

That economist won’t let it drop. He wants to reignite the whole debate and go further still. This is why the shocking facts come thick and fast in Professor Lord Richard Layard’s new book, and in conversation when we meet. To give just a few of the many he has stored up:

* Treating someone for depression or anxiety disorders costs on average £650. The success rate is 50 per cent. If they then come off Employment Support Allowance as a result, the saving to the taxpayer is £650 a month. So, a single outlay of £650 can save £650 a month.

* People with mental health problems cost the NHS an extra £2,000 each in their physical healthcare (in trips to A&E, for example), or £10bn in total. Spend more on psychotherapy and the cost would be covered by the saving on physical healthcare.

* Mental health issues account for half of all sick days.

* In Britain today, one adult in six suffers from depression or a crippling anxiety disorder. A third of families include someone who is mentally ill – yet fewer than one in three people suffering from mental health problems will receive treatment.

The argument for change posited by Layard and his co-author, David Clark, professor of psychology at Oxford, in their new book, Thrive, is a strong one. Mental health causes more of the suffering in our society than physical illness, poverty or unemployment – yet we do precious little about it.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/profiles/richard-layard-money-is-not-the-only-thing-affecting-people-s-happiness-9603424.html