Hidden cost of youth unemployment is depression and poor
physical health.
For thousands of young people the brutal reality of life
without a job is the start of a spiral into depression, anxiety and ill health.
GP Jackie Applebee works at the Tredegar practice in Tower
Hamlets, an Olympic borough which has one of the highest rates of youth
unemployment in the capital. One teenage girl treated by Dr Applebee applied
for 18 jobs without success and the impact on her mental health was
“devastating”.
“We have many young unemployed people registered with us and
the most overwhelming thing for them is a sense of worthlessness,” she said.
“They leave school with expectations but their dreams come to nothing. They get
depressed and that leads to inertia. You see people with low mood and an
inability to see a future.”
Counselling and crisis intervention services are one
solution but “ultimately most people just want a job”.
At the Bromley by Bow Centre, doctors don’t prescribe
anti-depressants to out-of-work young people.
Instead, they refer them for training courses which, says GP
Sam Everington, can be “the most important thing you can do” to improve their
physical and mental health — especially when 16 per cent of unemployed people
in the area have never worked and more than a third are long-term unemployed.
He said: “If you’re sitting at home watching TV that’s not going to improve
your mindset and you’re not going to do enough exercise.”
Dr Everington added: “It’s a disaster in the long term: the
longer you’re unemployed, the harder it is to get employment. If your mood goes
then you won’t eat healthily. Alcohol is a big risk for this age group.”
Cardiologist Aseem Malhotra said that the link between
social deprivation, unemployment and poor physical and mental health is
“undisputed”. He added: “There’s strong evidence that the unemployed are more
likely, through boredom and low self-esteem, to indulge in excessive alcohol
consumption and smoke. If the government and those with means to help do not take
this situation seriously then we will all be worse off with devastating costs
to the NHS and the taxpayer.”
A report by the Prince’s Trust shows that 48 per cent of
young people aged 16 to 25 not in work claim that being jobless has triggered
problems such as self-harm and insomnia.
The 2010 Macquarie youth index study showed that the longer
they don’t have a job, the more damaging the impact on their mental and
physical health. Young people are twice as likely to self-harm or suffer panic
attacks after a year of unemployment.
Without opportunities such as apprenticeships and meaningful
training schemes, then increasing numbers of young people will end up “feeling
dejected and isolated” according to social enterprise Turning Point, which
provides health and social care services including mental health support.'
Lord Adebowale, Turning Point’s chief executive, said the
pressure on health services will increase unless action is taken now.
“Unemployment is a public health issue; barriers to
employment are barriers to health,” he said.
“We’re storing up problems that
will cost this country dear in the future in mental health costs alone.”
There are physical costs as well. Professor Peter Goldblatt,
deputy director of the UCL Institute of Health Equity, said: “In the long term,
the effects of unemployment include health conditions such as heart disease and
cancer which is linked to the kind of food you eat. Potentially it’s
devastating.”
Source: London Evening Standard, David Cohen, 21st
September 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment