“Depression, anxiety and stress are common mental health issues and have become the world’s most pressing public health concerns. Data from the Global Health Data Exchange suggests the state of poor mental health problem is growing, with 17.3 percent or approximately 84 million people in Europe are suffering from the mental health challenge” (Hassan, et al., 2021).
“Research have also found mental health problems are among the most important contributors to the burden of other diseases and disability. Mental illness is a major source of loss of productivity and wellbeing. Losing the mental stability is additional burden to the economic development” (Hassan, et al., 2021).
With mental health becoming a major threat to our collective and individual well-being, it is important to focus on issues that are causing this problem with one of them being financial stress.
“As the world is facing serious issues of poverty, income instability and poor economic status and global financial crisis, more and more people are trapped in the financial stress situations. Data from the World Health Organization (WHO) indicates there is a steady rise in the percentage of individuals suffering from the financial hardship. This has triggered some worries on the financial burden and explained for today’s mental health crisis” (Hassan, et al., 2021).
“The study conducted by (M. Taylor et al., 2017) revealed financial hardship factors formed as the strongest associations with reported psychological distress among Western Sydney parents, particularly those factors related to mortgage/housing and employment security. On the other hand, (Economou et al., 2018) agreed that financial hardship was found to be risk factors for major depression.. (Butterworth et al., 2011) used longitudinal data to investigate whether the benefits of having a job depend on its psychosocial quality (levels of control, demands and complexity, job insecurity, and unfair pay) and whether poor quality jobs are associated with better mental health than unemployment. The findings on financial hardship were more strongly associated with depression than other socio-economic variables. The findings indicated that financial strain increased the level of depressive symptoms among this sample” (Hassan, et al., 2021).
If financial stress is a major factor in the mental health crisis, then it is important to understand that if we are able to mitigate some of these financial stresses, we may be able to improve the mental well-being of ourselves and our communities.
Banks are a major aspect of our financial lives which means that they can also create a great impact on their costumers and those that they invest in or are connected to. This makes banks an important tool that can be used in reducing financial stressors for improved well-being. By understanding the relationship between financial institutions, stressors, and well-being, we can begin to use design to reduce the amount of stress that people carry in regard to their finances and in tandem help improve mental well-being.
References:
Hassan, M., Hassan, N., & Kassim, E. (2021). Financial Wellbeing and Mental Health: A Systematic Review. Studies of Applied Economics, 39(4). DOI:10.25115/eea.v39i4.4590
