There is no health without mental health. Promoting and protecting the mental health of everyone is vital to improve the quality of people’s lives.
There is clear evidence proving that a range of prevention activities promote good mental health and reduce some of the impacts of poor mental health. These actions have also been shown to be cost-effective as a good way of spending money on activities that improve health outcomes.
This report is designed to enhance what is already known about the economic case for action in the mental health area. Building on the 2011 report Mental Health Promotion and Mental Illness Prevention: the Economic Case (Knapp, McDaid and Parsonage, 2011), this report summarises the findings of modelling work to estimate the cost of investing in a number of different interventions for which there is evidence that they can help reduce the risk and/or incidence of mental health problems in individuals of different ages and/or promote good mental health and wellbeing. The intention is that local areas will use this additional information alongside the interventions highlighted in the 2011 report.