Risk of employee mental health conditions remains 'alarmingly elevated'
Employees' collective mental health has started to improve but is still down significantly since the start of the pandemic.
The mental health of the U.S. workforce improved slightly last month, but employees remain at much higher risk for problems like anxiety and depressive disorder due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Total Brain.
Total Brain, an app platform that provides computerized, self-monitoring assessments of the mental health of U.S. workers to both employers and health care providers, has compiled monthly samples of its data since February, in partnership with the National Alliance of Healthcare Purchaser Coalitions and One Mind at Work. In June, Total Brain found the number of employees at risk for mental health conditions remained “alarmingly elevated,” when compared to just before the pandemic.
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The June index found an increased risk of 54% for depressive disorder, 49% for PTSD, 41% for general anxiety disorder and 11% for addiction. Still, the June data found one bright spot: From May 3 to June 28, there was a 27% decrease in the number of women at risk for depressive disorder and a 20% decrease in women with general anxiety disorder risks.
Total Brain attributed those decreases to the end of the school year, improvements in the infection rates of the coronavirus, and the reopening of certain businesses just as summer began.
“Generally speaking, what we saw in June was a softening of mental health risks,” said Total Brain CEO Louis Gagnon. “The risks decreased as the economy reopened, and as people went to the beach and summer arrived. People got used to the idea that COVID was there and they were much more positive, generally speaking, and that was true, especially for women, who happened to be, prior to June, the ones that were the most taxed in terms of risk.”
Gagnon wasn’t optimistic about July, however, given the resurgence of infection rates in several cities, the uncertainties about schools reopening, and the challenges employees will have in being able to go back to work.
“The problem with uncertainty is it creates fear, and the fear has nowhere to go because you don’t know if there’s an end to this bad situation,” he said. “More uncertainty is going to affect everything.”
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