BACKGROUND:Data from an RCT of IAPT Norway ("Prompt Mental Health Care" [PMHC]) were linked to several administrative registers up to five years following the intervention. The aims were to (1) examine the effects of PMHC compared to treatment-as-usual (TAU) on work-related outcomes and health care use, (2) estimate the cost-benefit of PMHC, and (3) examine whether clinical outcomes at six-month follow-up explained the effects of PMHC on work-/cost-benefit-related outcomes. METHODS:RCTs with parallel assignment were conducted at two PMHC sites (N = 738) during 2016/2017. Eligible participants were considered for admission due to anxiety and/or depression. We used Bayesian estimation with 90% credibility intervals (CI) and posterior probabilities (PP) of effects in favor of PMHC. Primary outcome years were 2018-2022. The cost-benefit analysis estimated the overall economic gain expressed in terms of a benefit-cost ratio and the differences in overall public sector spending. RESULTS:The PMHC group was more likely than the TAU group to be in regular work without receiving welfare benefits in 2019-2022 (1.27 ≤ OR ≤ 1.43). Some evidence was found that the PMHC group spent less on health care. The benefit-cost ratio in terms of economic gain relative to intervention costs was estimated at 5.26 (90%CI - 1.28, 11.8). The PP of PMHC being cost-beneficial for the economy as a whole was 85.9%. The estimated difference in public sector spending was small. PMHC effects on work participation and cost-benefit were largely explained by PMHC effects on mental health. CONCLUSIONS:The results support the societal economic benefit of investing in IAPT-like services.

Information on both wages and job quality is needed in order to understand the occupational dispersion of wellbeing. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large UK sample to construct a measure of 'overall reward', the sum of wages and the value of job quality, in 90 different occupations. If only wages are included, then labour market inequality is underestimated: the dispersion of overall rewards is one-third larger than the dispersion of wages. Our findings are similar, and stronger, in data on US workers. We find a positive correlation between job quality and wages in all specifications, both between individuals in the cross-section and within individuals in panel data. The gender and ethnic gaps in the labour market are larger than those in wages alone, and the overall rewards to education on the labour market are underestimated by earnings differentials alone.

Self-reported wellbeing is correlated with activity in a number of brain areas. The sensation of pain is most clearly experienced in the anterior cingulate cortex which registers both physical pain and social pain.

Our thoughts affect our feelings and our feelings affect our thoughts. But the way to break into this cycle is through changing our thoughts. Experimental evidence shows the effectiveness of many ways of doing this. Cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) teaches us to observe our automatic negative thoughts and make space for more positive thinking. Positive psychology builds on this, applying the lessons to all of us, and not just those in distress. It helps us all to build our emotional intelligence. The Action for Happiness movement applies these lessons through their 10 Keys to Happier Living. Mindfulness meditation, through non-judgemental and friendly engagement with the present moment, can transform our mental state and improve our immune system.

The way our parents behave affects our wellbeing. Affection and firm boundaries have positive effects on our wellbeing. However, individual resilience plays a role too - many children survive severe abuse without major changes to their wellbeing. The mental health of parents (and especially mothers) has a significant impact on the wellbeing of their children.

Being exposed to nature (trees, plants and green space) has demonstrable positive effects on our physical health, our behaviour (including crime) and our wellbeing. Quantifying this can improve the design of our lifestyle and our cities. For instance, people with longer commutes experience less wellbeing. However house price differences underestimate the wellbeing effect of green space and other aspects of the environment (like air pollution and noise).

Wellbeing is mainly studied by asking people questions. The most common question is about life-satisfaction and replies satisfy standard tests of reliability and validity. Using the Gallup World Poll, the World Happiness Report finds that on a scale of 0–10, 1 in 6 of the world’s population score 3 of below and 1 in 6 score 8 or above – a huge inequality in the quality of life. Another approach is to measure how people feel from moment to moment – their ‘affect’. This can be done by bleeping people in real time or asking retrospective questions about yesterday. This approach is best for measuring the effects of short-term experiences, but less so for measuring a person’s underlying wellbeing. The book rejects the third so-called ‘eudaimonic’ measure of wellbeing, on the grounds that virtue is the means to an end (and not the end itself).

Mental and physical illness are intimately related. Both cause pain in the same area of the brain and reduce our ability to function normally. Some 20% of the population would be diagnosed as having a mental illness. But in most advanced countries under a third of them are in treatment (and most of those are only receiving medication, not psychological treatment).

When policy-makers have multiple objectives, they still need an over-arching criterion which determines the importance of the different objectives. The most reasonable criterion is the wellbeing of the population. Fortunately, it turns out that this is also the outcome which most determines whether a government gets re-elected. We therefore argue that, wherever there is a fixed budget constraint, money should allocated to those policies which give the greatest increase in wellbeing per pound of expenditure. If desired, now policies can focus especially on areas of life which cause the most misery. The new science of wellbeing provides evidence on which these are: especially mental and physical illness and poor relationships at work, at home or in the community. But, to approve a policy, there must be evidence of its effectiveness in dealing with the problem – preferably through controlled experiments. Where a policy increases the length of life, this counts as an addition to wellbeing, measured by Wellbeing-Years (or WELLBYs) per person born. Even policy-makers unmoved by wellbeing as an objective should promote it because of its large positive effects on productivity, academic learning and life-expectancy. If wellbeing is to play its proper role in decision-making, this will require a major re-organisation of Finance Ministries and other decision-making bodies.

Every organisation would try in whatever way it could to generate the largest number of WELLBYs (appropriately discounted).

Both government conduct and government quality are significantly related to wellbeing levels around the world. Democratic quality appears to be more important for wellbeing in high-income countries. This could suggest that residents of low-income countries are more affected by their governments provision of basic goods and services, while residents of high-income countries place a higher value on democratic influence.

Governments in liberal democracies pursue social welfare, but in many different ways. The wellbeing approach instead asks: Why not focus directly on increasing measured human happiness? Why not try to improve people’s overall quality of life, as it is subjectively seen by citizens themselves? The radical implications of this stance include shifting attention to previously neglected areas (such as mental health and ‘social infrastructure’ services) and developing defensible measures of overall wellbeing or quality of life indicators. Can one ‘master’ concept of wellbeing work to create more holism in policy-making? Or should we stick with multiple metrics? These debates have been live in relation to an alternative ‘capacities’ approaches, and they are well-developed in health policymaking. Most recently, the connections between wellbeing and political participation have come into sharper focus. Wellbeing remains a contested concept, one that can be interpreted and used differently, with consequences for how it is incorporated into policy decisions. By bringing together scholars from economics, psychology and behavioural science, philosophy and political science, the authors explore how different disciplinary approaches can contribute to the study of wellbeing and how this can shape policy priorities.

Background To date, public health policies implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic have been evaluated on the basis of their ability to reduce transmission and minimise economic harm. We aimed to assess the association between COVID-19 policy restrictions and mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods In this longitudinal analysis, we combined daily policy stringency data from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker with psychological distress scores and life evaluations captured in the Imperial College London-YouGov COVID-19 Behaviour Tracker Global Survey in fortnightly cross-sections from samples of 15 countries between April 27, 2020, and June 28, 2021. The mental health questions provided a sample size of 432 642 valid responses, with an average of 14 918 responses every 2 weeks. To investigate how policy stringency was associated with mental health, we considered two potential mediators: observed physical distancing and perceptions of the government's handling of the pandemic. Countries were grouped on the basis of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic as those pursuing an elimination strategy (countries that aimed to eliminate community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within their borders) or those pursuing a mitigation strategy (countries that aimed to control SARS-CoV-2 transmission). Using a combined dataset of country-level and individual-level data, we estimated linear regression models with country-fixed effects (ie, dummy variables representing the countries in our sample) and with individual and contextual covariates. Additionally, we analysed data from a sample of Nordic countries, to compare Sweden (that pursued a mitigation strategy) to other Nordic countries (that adopted a near-elimination strategy). Findings Controlling for individual and contextual variables, higher policy stringency was associated with higher mean psychological distress scores and lower life evaluations (standardised coefficients beta=0.014 [95% CI 0.005 to 0.023] for psychological distress; beta=-0.010 [-0.015 to -0.004] for life evaluation). Pandemic intensity (number of deaths per 100 000 inhabitants) was also associated with higher mean psychological distress scores and lower life evaluations (standardised coefficients beta=0.016 [0.008 to 0.025] for psychological distress; beta=-0.010 [-0.017 to -0.004] for life evaluation). The negative association between policy stringency and mental health was mediated by observed physical distancing and perceptions of the government's handling of the pandemic. We observed that countries pursuing an elimination strategy used different policy timings and intensities compared with countries pursuing a mitigation strategy. The containment policies of countries pursuing elimination strategies were on average less stringent, and fewer deaths were observed. Interpretation Changes in mental health measures during the first 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic were small. More stringent COVID-19 policies were associated with poorer mental health. Elimination strategies minimised transmission and deaths, while restricting mental health effects. Copyright (C) 2022 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd.

Information on both earnings and non-pecuniary rewards is needed to understand the occupational dispersion of wellbeing. We analyse subjective wellbeing in a large UK sample to construct a measure of "full earnings", the sum of earnings and the value of non-pecuniary rewards, in 90 different occupations. Labour-market inequality is underestimated: the dispersion of full earnings is one-third larger than the dispersion of earnings. Equally, the gender and ethnic gaps in the labour market are larger than those in earnings alone, and the full returns to education on the labour market are underestimated. These results are similar in data on US workers. In neither cross-section nor panel data do we find evidence of compensating differentials.

COVID-19 has infected millions of people and upended the lives of most humans on the planet. Researchers from across the psychological sciences have sought to document and investigate the impact of COVID-19 in myriad ways, causing an explosion of research that is broad in scope, varied in methods, and challenging to consolidate. Because policy and practice aimed at helping people live healthier and happier lives requires insight from robust patterns of evidence, this article provides a rapid and thorough summary of high-quality studies available through early 2021 examining the mental-health consequences of living through the COVID-19 pandemic. Our review of the evidence indicates that anxiety, depression, and distress increased in the early months of the pandemic. Meanwhile, suicide rates, life satisfaction, and loneliness remained largely stable throughout the first year of the pandemic. In response to these insights, we present seven recommendations (one urgent, two short-term, and four ongoing) to support mental health during the pandemic and beyond.