ON October 10, the world commemorated Mental Health Day, a day set aside to reflect on the mental state of the world as well as to sustain advocacy on measures to mitigate the impact of mental health. This year’s focus was on the vital connection between mental health and work — a very important aspect of our lives. Work has become one of the major sources of stress.
Statistics for this year are yet to be released, but in 2019 it was estimated that one in every eight people in the world were living with a mental disorder or mental health issue. These are because of various causes such as biological, physical, environmental, social and clinical factors. Given that the world has gone through a tough phase between 2019 and now, these statistics might have exponentially increased.
The stress caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, economic depression, unemployment, social pressures, technology, wars and political unrest, general uncertainties as well as the impact of climate change are all driving mental health issues. Social and economic pressures are also pushing youth to resort to drug abuse — another scourge that is contributing to mental health issues globally.
One might be wondering that with all the technology advances and economic opportunities, why then would the world be facing growing mental health challenges.
Mental wellbeing reflects on society’s mental capability and functioning, as well as its ability to navigate and cope with life’s challenges and stresses. It is different from happiness or life satisfaction. It is possible and common that people who have it all are among those experiencing very difficult or sad circumstances in their lives despite having the best at their disposal.
Broadly, political, economic and environmental predictability is critical in living and sustaining a healthy mental state for any society. The absence of predictability places pressure on people as they try to deal or cope with the uncertainties in their lives. A society must be confident in the stability of their social, economic and political environment, while pursuing progressing change within their vision.
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This means that people must have faith in their economy encouraging them to conduct investment in their capacity, assets and children’s future in the full confidence that they will reap their yields with limited or mitigatable shocks or sources of instability. They should be able to plan their immediate and long-term future with the full knowledge that their visions are safe and protected from unnecessary instabilities.
That holistic confidence gives people the ability to feel comfortable to invest in realising their full potential and fulfilling their desire to do more and deliver a better future for the next generation. This breeds trust among the people and faith in the governing system as they feel they are operating in a safe and healthy environment which provides the protective factor for mental health.
In the absence of this confidence, the law of the jungle ensues. And this breeds repression, political and social tensions, unnecessary competition, stigma, discrimination, marginalisation and exposure to risks such as harassment and other poor living conditions. These feelings emerging out of the attitude of survival of fittest are counterproductive whose end product is chaos, stress and a spike in mental health.
Several studies have linked high unemployment rate and lack of economic opportunities to drug abuse. When goals and ambitions are not met in a context of high social and economic pressure, the youth tend to resort to drugs whose impact becomes a cost to already impoverished families and governments. Drugs impair judgment which pushes the same youth into crime to feed their addictions thus creating another layer of stress.
Some of the addiction is a result of the youth not seeing the need or value to be sober. A youth who has a job sees the need to be sober at work the next day, just the same one who has hope would avoid having their judgment impaired and disrupted by drugs and they would indulge in moderation or completely abstain. A youth in a stable environment pursues a vision and thus avoids crime to maintain a clean record.
While they are direct methods of mitigating some of the mental issues, it is becoming more critical that governments in Africa work towards opening and creating employment and economic opportunities to avoid losing the future generation. The drug market is growing, taking advantage of desperation among youth. This is destroying the future of the continent.
Studies already show that in Africa mental health issues are on the rise alongside rapidly increasing prevalence of substance abuse and substance use disorder among adolescents and young adults. This puts a huge burden on societies, economies, healthcare systems and the police and the justice system. The equation is as simple as if governments do not create economic opportunities for youth to be productive, they will surely become a huge expense on the national budget.
Taming mental health issues and drug abuse calls for governments to start realising that centralising economic growth is not just a political issue but an existential challenge. Youth are the energy needed to power economic growth and the continent is losing its young people to drugs. Governments have created that environment and they can reverse and address the situation by creating economic opportunities for their youth.
- Tapiwa Gomo is a development consultant based in Pretoria, South Africa. He writes here in his personal capacity.