Mental health in the UK
Overview
- In England, 1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year (1)
- 1 in 6 people report experiencing a common mental health problem (like anxiety and depression) each week
- In England, in 2014, 1 in 6 adults had a common mental health problem: about 1 in 5 women and one in eight men
- From 2000 to 2014, rates of common mental health problems in England steadily increased in women and remained largely stable in men
- Around 40% of people in England who have overlapping problems including homelessness, substance misuse and contact with the criminal justice system in any given year also have a mental health problem (this is sometimes called facing ‘multiple disadvantage’) (2)
Suicide
- 1 in 5 people have suicidal thoughts and 1 in 15 people attempt suicide (3)
- In 2021, there were 5,583 suicides registered in England and Wales, equivalent to a rate of 10.7 deaths per 100,000 people (4)
- Around three-quarters of registered deaths in 2021 were among men (4,129 deaths; 74.0%)
- Females aged 24 years or under have seen the largest increase in the suicide rate since ONS records began in 1981
Self-harm
- 1 in 14 people self-harm (5)
- A study from the University of Manchester found that almost a quarter of 10-19 year olds who identified as having self-harmed at least once were girls. Experts have seen reports of self harm rising in this demographic (6)
LGBTQ+
- LGBTQ+ people are between 2–3 times more likely than heterosexual people to report having a mental health problem in England (7)
- In 2018, around 2% of the UK population identified as LGB (8)
- 1% of the UK population are thought to identify as a Non-Binary gender (9)
Minority ethnic
- People from Minority Ethnic backgrounds are more likely to be living in poverty than white people (10)
- People living in poverty are more likely to develop and experience mental health issues (11)
Facts and figures about our Shout 85258 text support service
- To date, we have taken more than 1.5 million text conversations with 541,000 UK children, young people and adults in distress
- Suicide is the main reason people contact Shout (accounting for 35% of all conversations)
- 59% of people who text Shout did not have anyone else to talk to
- 43% of people who text Shout have never asked for help elsewhere
- 63% of Shout texters are under the age of 25