The fear of unemployment since the recession has led to a decline in men’s mental health, a study suggests.
Researchers from the Medical Research Council in Glasgow said the onset of the economic downturn could be considered a “threat to public health”.
The authors, who wanted to examine whether the recession had an impact on levels of anxiety and depression, analysed data concerning 107,000 people taken from the annual Health Survey for England for adults aged 25 to 64, between 1991 and 2010.
Their findings, published in the online journal BMJ Open, show rates of poor mental health were highest between 1991 and 1993, when the UK was in recession, after which they fell steadily until 2004.
The rates rose gradually until 2008, at which point they rose sharply.
In 2008, when the downturn began, the prevalence of people suffering from anxiety and depression was 13.7 per cent, but the figure rose to 16.4 per cent in 2009 and fell to 15.5 per cent in 2010.
Men appeared to be worse affected than women, the figures show.