Unsurprisingly, the MHI score dropped dramatically at the start of the pandemic, the average score dropping to a low of 57. To put that in perspective, the population average moved to the equivalent of the worst one percent of the population. before the pandemic. . While such a sharp drop could be expected, post-pandemic recovery expectations fell short, with the MHI score only rising seven points to 64.
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“Many people assume that once the physical risk of a pandemic or endemic is gone, everything else is fine, but that’s not how mental health works,” says Jamie MacLennan, senior vice president and general manager of Lifeworks.
MacLennan lived in Singapore through SARS, when the country went into lockdown for a matter of weeks. He says that research from previous pandemics shows that mental health problems persist much longer than physical risk.
“None of us have been through that level of social experiment where we were locked in for such an extended period of time. The mental health risks will continue for years to come,” says MacLennan.
