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A UK study in BMJ Mental Health, published on 24 July 2026, found that average psychological distress in the population rose between 2009 and 2023. The largest immediate jumps followed the June 2016 EU referendum and the first COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020. Distress eased after that lockdown but was still above pre-pandemic levels at the end of the study period. The September 2022 mini-budget, announced under Liz Truss’s government, produced no immediate overall change. The study links it only to a small, gradual monthly rise, as it does Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
What the study measured and how
The data and the distress score
The study draws on the UK Household Longitudinal Study, which covers 87,857 people aged 16 and over across survey waves from 2009 to 2024. The trend estimate runs from 2009 to 2023. Distress was measured with the 12-item General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12), a screening questionnaire scored from 0 (least distress) to 36 (most distress).
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The statistical approach
For each event, the authors used Bayesian interrupted time-series models to estimate two things: an immediate change in the average GHQ-12 score at the event, and a change in the monthly trend afterwards. Each event was modelled on its own. Putting all five into a single model risked collinearity, meaning the model could not reliably separate one event’s effect from another’s. As a check, the team ran a before-and-after comparison around each event that adjusted for the other events at once. Subgroup analyses covered age, sex, ethnicity, deprivation and employment status.
Results are reported with 95% credible intervals (CrI). A credible interval is the range the model treats as plausible for the true value, given its assumptions. A wide interval means a less precise estimate.
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The five events and what changed after each
Five dates were tested. Where a cell says “Not stated in the reported figures”, the study reports no value for that item in the publication details and the Guardian’s coverage of it.
| Event (date) | Immediate change in GHQ-12 score (95% CrI) | Change in monthly trend afterwards (95% CrI) |
|---|---|---|
| Brexit referendum result (24 June 2016) | +0.117 points (0.029 to 0.205) | Not stated in the reported figures |
| First COVID-19 lockdown (26 March 2020) | +0.649 points (0.531 to 0.767) | −0.03 points per month (−0.04 to −0.02), a gradual decline |
| Second COVID-19 lockdown (6 January 2021) | No overall immediate change detected | Not stated in the reported figures |
| Russia’s invasion of Ukraine (24 February 2022) | No overall immediate change detected | +0.010 points per month (0.004 to 0.023) |
| UK government mini-budget (23 September 2022) | No overall immediate change detected | +0.015 points per month (0.005 to 0.034) |
Reading immediate jumps against slow drift
The study separates two kinds of change. An immediate level change is a step: average distress was estimated to be higher in the month the event happened. A monthly slope change is a trend: distress was estimated to move up or down a little each month afterwards. The two can point in opposite directions, as they do after the first lockdown.
The step at the first lockdown, 0.649 points, is the largest single estimate in the study. It is roughly 60 per cent of the 1.085-point rise recorded across the whole 2009 to 2023 period. Both numbers sit on the same 0 to 36 scale, so the comparison is fair in size. It is still a ratio of two model estimates, not a separate finding.
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Did distress return to earlier levels?
Not by the end of the study period. After the first lockdown, distress fell by an estimated 0.03 points a month, so the pandemic jump partly faded. Distress nevertheless remained above pre-pandemic levels, and the 2023 population average sits above its 2009 starting point.
The rise did not begin with the pandemic. Distress was relatively stable until about 2015, then climbed more consistently. By 2019, before any of the COVID-19 events, the estimated average was 0.617 points above 2009. The headline’s “lasting decline” is therefore best read as a longer trend that the pandemic added to, not as a effect of the pandemic alone.
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How different groups were affected
The study reports considerable variation by age, sex, disability and deprivation. These differences belong to particular events and periods, and they do not carry over neatly from one shock to another.
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This group showed the greatest increase in distress over the whole study period, and its distress peaked in 2020. It was not, however, the group with the strongest immediate response to each event. The authors also note that distress among younger people was already rising before the selected shocks, which points to other drivers.
Women and men after the first lockdown
Women had a larger estimated immediate increase after the first lockdown than men: 0.862 GHQ-12 points against 0.385 points.
Long-term sick or disabled participants
This group reported the highest distress across the follow-up period. That is a difference in level across the whole period, not a measure of how much each event moved them.
Deprivation
Higher deprivation was associated with worse distress over time, and the gap between more and less deprived groups persisted across the period.
The subgroup findings for ethnicity and employment status are not detailed in the reporting available for this article, so they are not summarised here.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the Guardian’s GP-visit figures mean
The Guardian translated the study’s estimates into approximate numbers of additional people seeking GP help for depression: about 120,000 after the Brexit referendum, about 900,000 after the first lockdown, about 15,000 more per month after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and about 23,000 more per month after the mini-budget.
These are the newspaper’s equivalents of modelled changes in average distress. They are not counts of GP appointments, and they are not observed numbers of people seeking help. The first two are one-off totals and the last two are monthly figures, so they should not be compared directly.
What the study can and cannot establish
The headline goes further than the study. “Led to” implies that each event caused a decline in people’s mental health. The study estimates how average population distress moved around five dates. It does not show that any one event caused any individual’s distress, and its estimate for the mini-budget is a small monthly upward drift with no immediate change, not a sharp or established decline.
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The main limits are:
- Observational design. The events were not assigned to people at random, so other changes happening at the same time could contribute.
- Personal exposure unknown. Researchers did not know whether individuals were personally affected by each shock, for example through job loss or illness.
- Timing. The interruption dates may not match when any psychological effect began. Anticipatory or delayed effects could have been missed, and post-event trends were modelled as straight lines.
- Thin data after the later events. The Ukraine invasion and the mini-budget had relatively few survey observations around and after them, which may have limited statistical power. “No overall immediate change” for those events means the model did not detect one; it does not prove there was none.
- A screening measure. GHQ-12 is one screening measure and cannot capture every form of distress. A rise of this size is about 3 per cent of the full 36-point range. Small average shifts can move many people across screening thresholds, but the study does not show that each person experienced a clinically meaningful deterioration.
What the study lead and commentators said
As reported by the Guardian, study lead Dr Annie Jeffery said:
- “We have shown that major government decisions and current global events can have substantial impacts on people’s mental health.”
- “The past decade or so has been tumultuous, shaped by multiple overlapping shocks and ongoing uncertainty and instability that have impacted mental health in Britain.”
Andy Bell, chief executive of the Centre for Mental Health, who is not named as an author of the study, offered a broader explanation:
“It’s also clear that rising distress in the population is not due to a single cause but the effect of all these things added together, made worse by years of austerity giving fewer buffers against ‘shocks’ like this.”
That is a view about cause rather than a result from the study. The figures summarised here do not separately measure austerity, and the authors themselves point to several overlapping factors.
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