Team Blitz India
WEALTHIER countries of the Core Anglosphere such as the United Kingdom and Australia came towards the bottom of the Mental State of the World in 2023 while several African and Latin American countries topped the country rankings.
This suggests that greater wealth and economic development do not necessarily lead to greater mental wellbeing, said the report released this month. In 2023, data from the Global Mind Project identified key factors that explain these patterns, such as getting a smartphone at a young age, frequently eating ultra-processed food and a fraying of friendships and family relationships, that are typically more prevalent in internet-enabled populations of wealthier countries, it added.
The Mental State of the World Report is the annual report of the Global Mind Project and provides trends and insights on the mental wellbeing of internet-enabled populations around the globe.
Data was collected from over 500,000 respondents in 13 languages across 71 countries that spanned nine regions. This data was collected using the MHQ assessment, a comprehensive online survey of cognitive and emotional capabilities that provides an overall mental wellbeing metric (the MHQ score) as well as multiple dimensional views that relate to the ability to navigate the normal stresses of life and function productively.
Within these parameters, Dominican Republic, Sri Lanka and Tanzania top the rankings with MHQ scores of 88 or higher. Brazil, South Africa, the United Kingdom and Uzbekistan (Russian Speaking) are at the bottom of the ranking, with MHQ scores ranging from 48 to 53. On the MHQ scale this represents a 14.3 per cent difference between the top and bottom ranked countries.
The nonprofit neuroscience research organisation Sapien Labs began releasing the annual report in 2019. Global Mind Project’s Mental State of the World report shows a decline in mental health since 2020.
