Our understanding of mental health, and how it affects our lives, is developing all the time. As part of improving your understanding of how many people struggle with mental health issues and specific disorders, it's a good idea to familiarise yourself with some of the latest research, facts, and statistics on the topic.
To help grow your awareness of mental health, we’ve listed some facts and figures from leading organisations in mental health and public health.
Key mental health statistics and facts
- 1 in 6 people, or approximately 45.8 million adults, report experiencing symptoms of common mental health problems, like anxiety and depression, in any given week in England [1]
- Nearly half (43.4%) of adults (24.5 million in England) think they've had a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life [1]
- 61% of adults with mental health conditions don’t access treatment [1]
- The amount of people with common mental health problems went up by 20% between 1993 and 2014, in both men and women [1]
- 14.3% of deaths worldwide, or approximately 8 million deaths each year, are attributable to mental disorders [2]
- 98% of people agree that mentally ill people experience stigma and discrimination [3]
- Nearly 9 out of 10 people with mental health problems say that stigma and discrimination have a negative effect on their lives [4]
- 25% of people in England, approximately 14.1 million adults, say they feel lonely at least some of the time [5]
Gender
- 1 in 5 women report experiencing symptoms of mental health problems, compared to 1 in 8 men [1]
- 35.2% of men and 51.2% of women think they've had a diagnosable mental health condition at some point in their life [1]
- A fifth of men (19.5%) and a third of women (33.7%) have had diagnoses for mental health conditions confirmed by professionals [1]
- Women and girls attempt suicide 1.5 to 2 times more often than men and boys [6]
- Three quarters of registered suicide deaths in the UK in 2020 were for men [7]
- 40% of men said it would take thoughts of suicide or self-harm to compel them to seek professional help [8]
Age
- Approximately 15% of adults aged 60 and over suffer from a mental disorder [9]
- 45 to 49 years has the highest age-specific suicide rate (24.1 male and 7.1 female deaths per 100,000) [7]
- Over a quarter (26%) of young women aged between 16 and 24 years old report having a common mental health problem in any given week [1]
- 1.4 million over 65s in the UK today are lonely [10]
- Globally, 1 in 7 of 10 to 19 year olds experiences a mental disorder [11]
Suicide
- 1 in 5 people in England (approximately 11.3 million adults) have suicidal thoughts [1]
- 1 in 14 people in England (approximately 4 million adults) self-harm [1]
- 1 in 15 people in England (approximately 3.7 million adults) attempt suicide [1]
- 46% of people who die by suicide had a known mental health condition [12]
- More than 1 in 3 people who die by suicide are under the influence of alcohol at the time of death [13]
In the workplace
- Up to 300,000 people with mental health problems lose their jobs each year [14]
- 822,000 people suffered from common mental health problems like stress, depression or anxiety due to their workplace in 2020/21 [15]
- 55% of workers say their employment has an adverse effect on their mental health [15]
- 71% of the people would worry about telling their employer if they had a mental health condition, for fear of getting a negative response [16]
- 12.7% of all sickness absence days in the UK can be attributed to mental health conditions [17]
Specific mental health disorders
Depression
- Approximately 280 million people in the world have depression [18]
- The percentage of adults in the US who report having been diagnosed with depression at some point in their lifetime has reached 29.0%, nearly 10 percentage points higher than in 2015. [19]
- Including postnatal depression, 24% of women report having had depression at some stage in their life, compared with 13% of men [20]
Read more depression statistics.
Anxiety
- In England, in any given week in 2013, there was a 6.6% prevalence of anxiety [1]
- In England, women are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety disorders as men [21]
- The median age of onset for anxiety disorders is 11 years [22]
Read more anxiety statistics.
Stress
- The overwhelming majority (79%) of UK adults feel stressed at least 1 day a month [23]
- 1 in every 14 people (7%) in the UK say they feel stressed every single day. 1 in 5 UK adults (21%) say they never feel stressed [23]
- 74% of UK adults have felt so stressed at some point over the last year, they felt overwhelmed or unable to cope [24]
Read more stress statistics.
References
- Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey: Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing
- Mortality in mental disorders and global disease burden implications
- 30 Disheartening Statistics on Mental Health Stigma
- Stigma and discrimination
- Wellbeing and Loneliness - Community Life Survey 2020/21
- Suicide Statistics
- Suicides in England and Wales: 2020 registrations
- Men's mental health: 40% of men won’t talk to anyone about their mental health
- Mental health of older adults
- Loneliness research and resources
- Mental health of adolescents
- Risk of Suicide
- Vital Signs: Trends in State Suicide Rates
- 'Depression lost me my job': How mental health costs up to 300,000 jobs a year
- Statistics - Work-related ill health and occupational disease (hse.gov.uk)
- Sickness absence in the UK labour market: February 2014
- Depressive disorder (depression)
- U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs (gallup.com)
- Mental health problems
- Anxiety: statistics
- Lifetime prevalence and age-of-onset distributions of DSM-IV disorders
- Workplace stress statistics in the UK
- Stress: statistics