Mental health problems cut young Finns’ fully functional years

A new measure shows how health problems reduce the years Finns can live without restrictions in everyday activities or work, Yle reports. Mental health problems account for a significant share of lost functional years among young people, while musculoskeletal and cardiovascular diseases become more prominent at older ages.

Researchers at the University of Eastern Finland and Australia’s Monash University developed the measure to calculate life expectancy adjusted for functional capacity and work ability.

It takes into account whether people can manage everyday activities such as shopping, cleaning, caring for relatives, moving around and studying. Work ability is assessed through sickness absences and people’s own experiences of managing their jobs despite health problems.

The measure shows that reduced functioning is not limited to the final years of life. Long-term illnesses and common infections can affect people’s ability to cope in shorter or longer periods throughout their lives.

A 20-year-old in Finland is expected to live to an average age of 82, with about 62 years of life remaining. The average 20-year-old has around 45 years of life left without health problems restricting their activities. These fully functional years can occur in separate periods throughout the rest of life.

For a 40-year-old, average life expectancy is 83, leaving about 43 years to live. The average 40-year-old has around 30 years of full functional capacity remaining.

These figures do not mean that people spend the other years bedridden. They include days and weeks when people work or manage their homes while partly unwell or exhausted, said Piia Lavikainen, a university researcher at the University of Eastern Finland.

Depression and other mental health problems are especially important causes of lost work-capable years among young people, particularly young women, Lavikainen said. Musculoskeletal diseases and cardiovascular diseases increase among somewhat older people.

People in their forties reported the strongest work and functional capacity. Differences between age groups were relatively small, but people in their twenties rated their capacity lower than those in their forties and sixties.

Among Finnish adults under 79, the average self-assessed functional and work capacity was 0.77 on a scale from zero to one. Zero represented complete inability to manage the demands of everyday life or work because of health problems, while one represented full capacity.

Lavikainen said the new measure is needed to show more clearly how health problems affect people’s ability to manage daily life and to assess the wider social impact of preventing and treating diseases. Researchers plan to expand it to include the effects of socioeconomic factors.