Letter of the Day | Address poor mental health in workplaces
Published:Friday | August 11, 2023 | 12:06 AM
THE EDITOR, Madam
Poor mental health has been stigmatised for decades, and those suffering from mental illness are considered pariahs in walks of society. In Jamaica, how much more does being diagnosed with poor mental health further subjugate one to ridicule and disdain?
Does the modern workplace have an active and consistent systematic approach to ameliorate effects of poor mental health on its employees? It would be blatantly erroneous to produce the premise that all workplaces in Jamaica lack the aforementioned system to mitigate poor mental health. However, it leads the common spectator to wonder how effective these systems are, and how consistently they are monitored, updated and enhanced?
The World Health Organization’s 2022 World Mental Health Report states that some risk factors contributing to poor mental health in the workplace include, but not limited to, having poor working environments inclusive of discrimination and inequality, having excessive workloads or consecutively long hours on the job, a low job control and job insecurity to name a few.
The statistics are disconcerting enough; one in every seven persons (14.3 per cent) experience mental health problems in the workplace; women in full-time employment are nearly twice as likely to have a common mental health problem as full-time employed men (19.8 per cent vs 10.9 per cent); and 15 per cent of working-age adults were estimated to have a mental disorder in 2019 alone, according to the Mental Health Foundation. An estimated 12 billion working days are lost every year to depression and anxiety, at a cost of US$1 trillion per year in lost productivity globally.
In the Jamaican context, stress factors can stem from the home, where unresolved issues with spouses and children can raise stress levels. Chronic stress is a risk factor for developing hypertension. Insufficient salaries in Jamaica can further exacerbate this problem due to our hapless living standards.
DUJEAN EDWARDS