Financial Times: Now is the time to tackle the mental illness epidemic
Editorial Board

“Business leaders have for decades boasted in company annual reports about how people are their priority. It is surprising, therefore, that mental health has taken so long to reach the top of their agenda. … Coronavirus and subsequent lockdowns are a two-pronged attack on the mental wellbeing of workers, compounded by bereavement, personal grief and the broader temptation to ‘doom-scroll’ bad news streaming through social media. … Strategies to reduce risks to mental health need to be deepened, expanded beyond companies, and sustained beyond the crisis, with the emphasis placed as much on prevention as on treatment and cure. … Wider policy reforms that might remove some deeper causes of mental illness must be the responsibility of governments, not business. Sadly, the pandemic will stretch their resources more than ever. Still, if there were ever a time for policymakers to address the structural and societal roots of poor mental health, and thus cut the longer-range costs of treating its symptoms later, this is surely it” (11/13).