Poorer mental health among young people and lower educated

A new Topline Results report published as part of the Make it Healthy theme of the Infra4NextGen project focuses on mental health outcomes.

Analysis of the data found that young people (aged under 35) and those with lower levels of education are more likely to report poor mental health.

Better mental health outcomes were reported by those with strong personal relationships and respondents less likely to feel lonely over the past week.

Therapeutic drug use was higher amongst those reporting bad or very bad mental health and some respondents reported an inability to access key mental health services.

To help address mental health issues, the report's authors suggest expanding affordable mental health services aimed at young people, and prioritising personal relationships through community initiatives.

They also request an increase in the amount of evidence-based online resources and suggest that national governments should consider age-based restrictions on access to some social media platforms.

Subjective mental health

Respondents in all 11 countries were asked to report their own mental health on a five-point scale from 1 (very good) to 5 (very bad).

The highest proportions of individuals reporting bad or very bad mental health were found in the United Kingdom (10.2%), Hungary (8.3%), and Iceland (8.1%).

The analysis discovered higher levels of poor mental health amongst people aged under 35 (11.6%) and those with the lowest level of education (9.1%), compared with older adults (5.4%) and higher levels of education (4.7%).

Conversely, the highest proportion of respondents reporting good or very good levels of mental health were in Belgium (76.8%), Austria (75.2%) and Poland (74.8%).

Loneliness and social networks

The report considered whether levels of loneliness—and people's networks of family and friends—have an effect on mental health.

Respondents were asked how lonely they felt over the past week, with highest levels reported in Hungary (48%), Czechia (47.2%) and France (46.8%).

Across all of the 11 countries, over half of younger respondents (52.2%) reported feeling lonely over the past week, compared to just over a third of older people (35.3%).

The analysis found that the vast majority of those reporting poor mental health also reported being lonely over the past week.

Of those reporting poor mental health, 17.7% of respondents aged under 35 felt lonely over the past week, compared with just 6.7% of respondents who did not.

The report stated: "The analysis of CRONOS-3 shows that strong interpersonal relationships, including receiving support, having a good friend, and maintaining good family ties, are associated with better mental health."

Therapeutic drug use

Respondents who report bad or very bad mental health are significantly more likely to report ever having used therapeutic drugs to aid sleep (51.7%) and manage chronic pain (45.6%), compared to those with fair, good, or very good mental health (27.3% and 30.9%).

A higher proportion of older respondents reported using drugs to aid sleep and manage pain than the younger cohort.

Accessing mental health services

Across all 11 countries, around 5% of respondents indicated that they had unmet mental healthcare needs, mainly due to costs and waiting times.

Unmet need was highest amongst those in Portugal (8.9%), Poland (5.1%) and Czechia (4.3%).

The report's authors found age differences between, with young people reporting more unmet need then older respondents (7% to 2.6%).

Almost 17% of respondents reported searching the Internet for mental health information, with those in Slovenia, Portugal, the United Kingdom and Hungary reporting the most frequent use.

"Younger adults, women, and those with a medium level of education tend to use the Internet more frequently for seeking information about mental health.

Further information

The analysis was conducted by Insa Backhaus-Hoven and Terje Andreas Eikemo (CHAIN—Centre for Health Equity Analytics) and David Consolazio (University of Milan).

The report analysed data collected over five waves of the self-completion panel survey (CRONOS-3), fielded in 11 countries during 2024-25.

Panellists in Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Finland, France, Hungary, Iceland, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia and the United Kingdom were asked to complete an online survey or paper questionnaire.

Read the report: Topline Results: Mental health amongst young Europeans

Find out more about the Infra4NextGen project

Provided by European Social Survey ERIC