Erin Smith

Brain health is intricately linked with climate change; when one improves so does the other, and vice versa. Overcoming evolutionary cognitive biases can both improve brain health and equip us to prevent climate change. Conversely climate change and environmental collapse may significantly harm brain health.

Science denialism is a major hurdle to managing many global crises. For example, denialism has had devastating consequences in the COVID-19 pandemic. Science denialism 

 “antimask behavior, antivaccine beliefs, conspiracy theories ... and ... support ... for unproven therapies.”

 The impact of science denialism extends beyond COVID-19; it has also impeded efforts to address the modern-day climate crisis, where pseudoscience and conspiracy theories abound. For example, George Mason University scientist John Cook notes that while around 97% of scientists agree that climate change is primarily anthropogenic, “only 12% of the American public are aware that the scientific consensus is higher than 90%.”

 Furthermore, Cook writes that 20% of Americans think climate change is a “hoax.”

Psychological factors make fighting misinformation a difficult task. For one, misinformation is sticky. Cook writes that “Once people internalize misinformation, it is notoriously difficult to dislodge.”

 Additionally, misinformation is compelling, and human beings have an innate proclivity for consuming denialist media. Vosoughi et al, analyzing 12 years of Twitter data, found that fake news stories spread much faster on Twitter than real news—and individuals are to blame for their circulation, not bots. Fake news stories “diffused significantly farther, faster, deeper, and more broadly than the truth in all categories of information.”

 True news stories took about 6 times longer to reach 1500 people on Twitter than hoax stories, according to the study. As the satirist 

 observed in the 18th century, “falsehood flies, and the truth comes limping after it.”

Even without direct denialism, the human brain is hard-wired to underestimate the threat of the climate crisis. Matthew Wilburn King, writing for the BBC, 

 that evolutionary cognitive biases (like the sunk-cost fallacy and the bystander effect) are a hindrance to responding to long-term, large-scale threats like climate change.

 Similarly, a report from the American Psychological Association (APA) 

 that, “Many think of climate change risks (and thus of the benefits of mitigating them) as both considerably uncertain and as being mostly in the future and geographically distant, all factors that lead people to discount them.”

Furthermore, there is a sort of climate change bystander effect, with the APA stating that “many people… believe that others should act, or believe that their actions will make no difference or are unimportant compared to those of others.”

 The upshot is that fighting climate change is as much a psychological battle as it is a political or economic one. Together, we must overcome the cognitive barriers to popular acceptance of the realities of climate change.

The Interplay Between Brain Health and Climate Change

There is growing recognition that fostering brain skills will be crucial to confronting climate change. Cook recently developed the “Cranky Uncle” game to teach individuals about logical fallacies and critical thinking in the context of climate change. In the game, players must identify the form of science denial that matches the possible arguments of a climate denialist, such as “How can models predict climate 100 years out when they can’t get the forecast right next week?” and “Climate models are imperfect so they can’t be trusted.”

But the ties between the brain and the climate go even further. Just as improving brain health can help avert climate change or create preparedness should a changed climate eventually result in environmental collapse, climate change may significantly harm brain health. Nancy Sicotte, chair of the Department of Neurology at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, 

 that the brain has an “optimum temperature,” and global heating could reduce productivity and worsen symptoms for multiple sclerosis patients.

 that climate change, and in particular the resultant severe weather events, can lead to mental health issues.

 Finally, the National Bureau of Economic Research 

 that higher temperatures might lower worker productivity and increase conflict.

 Even in the absence of further climate change, brain health already 

: it has been negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, and significant challenges lie ahead.

 The effect on brain health is just 1 of potentially many unintended consequences of climate change.

All in all, the relationship between climate change and the brain resembles a vicious cycle: the climate crisis worsens brain skills, and diminished brain skills perpetuate climate inaction or rejection of the scientific consensus. To break the cycle, we must develop a plan to improve brain health and brain skills at scale. But how?

The Road to Better Brain and Climate Health

In the corporate world, the use of metrics is vital to accomplishing directives. Want a happier staff? Start tracking employee well-being. Want more loyal customers? Start recording net promoter scores. Or, more pertinently, as many companies attempt to foster a sense of corporate purpose that may value priorities like environmentalism, researchers have suggested an 

 through converting purpose-related metrics into “monetary values.”

OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative

. With this work we aim to advance the notion that in our 

, investments in brain health and brain skills are critical for post-COVID economic renewal, re-imagination, and long-term economic resilience that are in multiple ways connected to healthy ecosystems. This Initiative previously proposed 

, and tracking related to improving brain health and brain skills. In particular, by developing a 

, we can measure progress in brain health and brain skills.

Humans are embedded in, rather than apart from, the world as a global ecosystem, meaning our health and welfare can eventually be dragged down by ecosystem deterioration. Such may be the case if our global climate shifts into an irreversible Hothouse Earth, 

 by Will Steffen from the University of Canberra and Stockholm Resilience Center.

 We believe the Brain Capital framework will help us unlock critical thinking skills, creativity, and resilience, which are needed today more than ever to navigate the complexity of social-ecological challenges in the face of climate change.

is an associate with the PRODEO Institute and student at Stanford University.

is an associate with the PRODEO Institute and Thiel Fellow at Stanford University.

is Senior Advisor to the OECD Secretary General and Head of the New Approaches to Economic Challenges Unit at the OECD.

Researcher at the Department of Aquatic Sciences and Assessment; Section for Ecology and Biodiversity at the Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet.

is cofounder of the PRODEO Institute, colead of the OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative, adjunct associate professor with IMPACT at Deakin University, and instructor in brain health diplomacy with the Global Brain Health Institute based between the University of California, San Francisco and Trinity College Dublin.

 Miller BL. Science denial and COVID conspiracy theories: potential neurological mechanisms and possible responses. 

2. Cook J. Understanding and countering misinformation about climate change. In: Chiluwa I, Samoilenko S, eds. 

Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online

3. Vosoughi S, Roy D, Aral S. The spread of true and false news online. 

4. King MW. How brain biases prevent climate action. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20190304-human-evolution-means-we-can-tackle-climate-change

5. American Psychological Association. Psychology & global climate change: addressing a multifaceted phenomenon and set of challenges. 2009. 

https://www.apa.org/science/about/publications/executive-summary.pdf

6. Neuroscience News staff. The brain and climate change. 

https://neurosciencenews.com/climate-change-brain-15806/

7. Weir K. Climate change is threatening mental health. 

8. Belsie L. Exploring how climate change affects conflict and productivity. National Bureau of Economic Research. 2015;4.

9. Ellsworth W, Smith E, Chapman SB, et al. Move over data, brain capital is the new oil. 

. January 14, 2021. Accessed April 6, 2021. 

https://www.psychiatrictimes.com/view/move-over-data-brain-capital-is-the-new-oil

. Barby C, Barker R, Cohen R, et al. Measuring purpose: an integrated framework. 

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3771892

11. Steffen W, Rockström J, Richardson K, et al. Trajectories of the Earth System in the Anthropocene. 

Articles

Investments in brain health and brain skills are key to sustaining the environment and navigating the complexities of social-ecological challenges.

Our Brains Are Accelerating the Climate Catastrophe

Brains are the indispensable drivers of human progress, but brain health issues can wreak havoc on society. Consider the devastation of disorders like depression, anxiety, and Alzheimer disease—which cost the economy trillions each year. There are currently 

 to Environment, Sustainability, and Governance (ESG) investing around the world. If only a portion of these funds were diverted into brain health, they could produce major improvements for our society.

The cost of mental disorders and dementia has shown us the disproportionate vulnerability of the elderly and disabled, and caused us to refocus on brain health. Brain health challenges exist across the life span from development disorders in the young, to multiple sclerosis and trauma in midlife, to stroke, Alzheimer disease, and Parkinson disease in later life. These conditions—coupled with the disorders of depression, schizophrenia, and bipolar illness—account for a tremendous cost to society and cause untold individual suffering. Beyond these familiar diagnoses, there are a plethora of other impediments to good brain health. Poor nutrition, limited exercise, and poor learning environments all keep individuals from reaching their brain health potential. As just one example, 

 found that in the state of Texas alone, over $2.2 billion is lost by not treating mothers’ mental health issues from pregnancy until their child is 5 years old. These problems can be remedied only at the social, political, policy, and diplomatic level.

Financial investments in ESG have grown tremendously over recent years. Many companies are investing in businesses that prioritize sustainability-related disclosures, business practices, and plans. Transitioning to a greener, more sustainable economy will also require adaptability, new skills, collective problem solving, and other brain skills.

There are some examples of prioritizing health interventions in the ESG field. For instance, the Culture of Health for Business (

) program was developed as a partnership between the Global Reporting Initiative and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Likewise, a 

 was recently published by the World Economic Forum and Willis Towers Watson. This framework aims to quantify and build human capital within large organizations that have historically struggled to do so, due to the intangible nature of strong corporate culture, stakeholder leadership, and employee well-being.

Unfortunately, neither approach pays much attention to brain health. This is a missed opportunity. Brain-focused investing can help advance the ESG agenda, especially now that rates of 

stigma against mental health care are dropping

 due to the wide-spread understanding of COVID social- and physical-distancing.

 to provide a framework for organizing and accelerating existing projects, both public and private. The term Brain Capital is used to evoke the importance of valuing, investing in, and safeguarding our mental assets.

There are some promising trends to note. Venture capital investing in mental health technologies neared 

 in 2020—with strong growth projected in 2021. There are a number of 

 companies now in the mental health technology field. 

 are being trialed in the mental health field. The 

 is pioneering health brain bonds to raise $10 billion for brain health research. 

 models have been developed to accelerate Alzheimer disease therapeutics. Large information technology companies are developing product and service portfolios in the brain health field (eg, 

). There are niche ESG-focused exchange traded funds, such as those focused on 

, which provide predicates for focusing on issues of the brain.

Imagine a world without mental suffering. We would be flourishing—fulfilled, connected, resilient, and accomplishing meaningful and worthwhile tasks that would be good for individuals and the planet.

is an MD candidate at David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

is the Charles E. and Susan T. Harris Professor, a Professor of Finance, and the Director of the Laboratory for Financial Engineering at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

is a research professor and Director of Chambers-Grundy Center for Transformative Neuroscience at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

is cofounder of the PRODEO Institute, adjunct associate professor with IMPACT at Deakin University, and co-lead of the OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative.

Devoting funds to better benefit brain health could improve society as a whole. 

A Brainier Approach to ESG Investing

Serendipity has played a significant role in many scientific advancements in mental health throughout history, like the discovery of lithium as a treatment for bipolar disorder. Now more than ever, we are in desperate need of similarly impactful discoveries in mental health. Adopting a serendipity mindset—the ability to use uncertainty as a pathway to a more successful and purposeful life—to reverse engineer the systems needed for more breakthroughs, and to span and fuse disciplines, might be the way to achieve this.

The Leading Cause of Ill-Health and Disability

The world is in the throes of a global mental health crisis with severe physical, social, and economic ramifications. According to a recent World Health Organization (WHO) 

, around 450 million individuals currently suffer from mental health conditions, marking mental health disorders among the leading causes of ill-health and disability worldwide.

 Mental disorders account for 5 out of the top 10 causes of global disability. Although treatments are available, 

 of individuals with a known mental health disorder will never seek help from a health professional.

 Surveys in India and China, which represent a third of the global population, have suggested this number is even higher, with more than 80% of people with any mental health or substance use disorder not seeking treatment. In part, this is due to the pervasive stigma of mental illness that permeates societies and healthcare systems, resulting in systemic underinvestment in mental health.

When individuals do seek help, they may not be able to receive the care they need. According to a recent report from a team of 28 global experts assembled by Lancet, the world’s failure to respond to the mental health crisis has resulted in a “

monumental loss of human capabilities and avoidable suffering.

 The commission estimates more than 13 million lives could be saved every year if mental illness was treated properly—or at all. Alongside the profound costs of human lives and avoidable suffering, there are colossal financial ramifications. Indeed, epidemiological modelling suggests the rising cost of mental illness will hit $16 trillion USD by 2030.

 COVID-19 has amplified many of these issues, triggering social and physical distancing, economic hardship, and challenges in accessing care. 

The 21st century will be largely defined by our collective response to the global mental health crisis—and beacons of hope are beginning to emerge. Stigma is reducing, awareness is increasing, allowing people to slowly overcome back the barriers to seeking care. Meanwhile, venture capital funding for mental health start-ups has been growing rapidly and accelerated even more during COVID. 

 showed 146 deals ranked in nearly $1.6 billion in venture capital investments as of December 10th, 2020.

 A decade ago, there were only 3 deals, worth $6.6 million, whereas last year the total was $893 million from 111 deals. However, these advances on their own will not be able to solve the above stated global challenges. A paradigm shift is needed to solve the unprecedented complexities and challenges associated with the current global mental health crisis. This shift will require the education of governments and healthcare systems of the world, empowerment of consumers to take charge of their own mental health, and the use of technology both for prevention and treatment of mental disorders.

Convergence Mental Health as a Mechanism for Serendipity

Mental health is a prototypical wicked problem in that it embodies large numbers of diverse factors from biology, sociology, genetics, and psychology to economics and beyond.

 can counteract those influences and ease the anxiety that comes with the inherent unpredictability of the world. This outlook centers on being the agent of one’s own good luck. An individual can shift from a passive victim of circumstance to an active creator of opportunities by embracing the uncertainty that happens each day.

 Training the serendipity muscle in turn trains one’s ability to solve problems by identifying positive outcomes from situations and making accidents more meaningful. 

Interdisciplinary collaboration is the driver of serendipity. Those who operate with a serendipity mindset are not luckier than others, but rather cultivate luck and solutions by consistently seeking out new experiences and reaching across multiple industries. Convergence science is “an approach to problem solving that cuts across disciplinary boundaries. It integrates knowledge, tools, and thought strategies from various fields for tackling challenges that exist at the interfaces of multiple fields.”

 It can be a mechanism for serendipity through integration of knowledge, tools, and thought-strategies from various fields for tackling challenges that exist at the interface of multiple disciplines.

In the context of mental health, convergence science involves the integration of scientists, clinicians, bioinformaticists, global health experts, social scientists, health economists, engineers, technology entrepreneurs, medical educators, caregivers, and patients—we call this Convergence Mental Health.

 Synergy between government, academia, and industry is also vital. Convergence science is the Ariadne thread necessary to navigate the intricate labyrinth of global mental health problems, bringing about urgently needed progress in science and society. Examples of Convergence Mental Health-associated advances are outlined in the 

Table. Convergence Mental Health-Associated Advances

Innovations at all different levels are urgently needed. Solutions will need sociologists, psychologists, philosophers, ethicists, scientists, media practitioners, crisis management experts, policy makers, senior civil servants, and more. 

 provides direction for these shifts in how teams work. As COVID-19 has demonstrated, distance does not stop the wheel of innovation, and in fact can propel it by lowering the perceived barriers to novel ways of working and collaborating. As we embark on building the new normal, Convergence Mental Health will play a key role in this rapidly unfolding change.

 provides a historic opportunity to lead to a new era of innovation and progress, leading to improved outcomes for all people and preparing psychiatry to meet the unprecedented mental health challenges of the 21st century. By adopting a serendipity mindset, we can learn to harness uncertainty to create unique solutions across industries.

is Director of Innovation at a major mental health association and expert in residence at Georgetown University, and the author of

 is a masters candidate in Global Affairs from New York University. 

is a professor of psychiatry at University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA).

professor of psychiatry at the Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Translation (IMPACT) at Deakin University.

cofounder of the PRODEO Institute, adjunct associate professor with IMPACT at Deakin University, and co-lead of the OECD Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative.

The World Health Report 2001: Mental health: new understanding, new hope

2. Bosely S. World in mental health crisis of ‘monumental suffering’, say experts

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/oct/09/world-mental-health-crisis-monumental-suffering-say-experts

3. Patel V, Saxena S, Lund C, et al. The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development.

4. Lee JL. Mental health tech startups fetch record investments with COVID-19. 

https://www.reuters.com/article/health-coronavirus-mental-health/mental-health-tech-startups-fetch-record-investments-with-covid-19-idUKKBN28P1SA

Convergence: Facilitating Transdisciplinary Integration of Life Sciences, Physical Sciences, Engineering, and Beyond

7. Eyre HA, Berk M, Lavretsky H, Reynolds C. 

8. Eyre HA, Lavretsky H, Forbes M, et al. Convergence science arrives: how does it relate to psychiatry? 

10. Richardson S, Sinha A, Vahia I, et al. Brain health living labs. 

Why mental health matters to global health.

12. Shah RN, Berry OO. The rise of venture capital investing in mental health. 

13. Chang DD, Storch EA, Black L, et al. Promoting tech transfer between space and global mental health. 

14. Ternes K, Iyengar V, Lavretsky H, et al. Brain health INnovation Diplomacy: a model binding diverse disciplines to manage the promise and perils of technological innovation. 

15. Smith E, Ali D, Wilkerson B, et al. A Brain Capital Grand Strategy: toward economic reimagination. Mol Psychiatry. 2021;26(1):3-22.

16. New Approaches to Economic Challenges, PRODEO Institute. Neuroscience-inspired Policy Initiative. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Accessed March 23, 2021. 

This mindset might be the key to mental health breakthroughs. 

Feeling Lucky? Convergence Mental Health as a Mechanism for Serendipitous Innovation

Since the 1980s, shareholder-value ideology (boosting profits above all other considerations) has led to a pattern of corporate behavior with troubling consequences. It has created employment instability, undermined productivity and innovation, exacerbated income inequality, and compromised the environment. The erosion of middle-class jobs has created enormous mental stress and uncertainty. Structural changes in employment help account for this, including the fissuring of the workplace, the end of the norm of a career with one company, and offshoring of employment to low-wage nations (driven by globalization and technological change).

Corporations have implemented these practices purely for financial gain, pursuing strategies to maximize returns to shareholders and high-level executives. This has encouraged an excessive focus on short-term returns and a decline in long-term investment. It has not sufficiently taken into account the human cost of such strategies. As an alternative, there are a number of efforts to advance stakeholder capitalism. Stakeholder capitalism would ensure that the broader interests of workers, local communities, and society are represented on corporate boards. The stakeholder value model thus builds a multi-bottom line approach, which goes beyond shareholder value creation to include a broader array of economic and societal values.

The Economic Burden of Brain Health Disorders

 emotional, behavioral, and cognitive health across the lifespan. In this context, compromised brain health greatly increases the risk of disorders (for example, depression, anxiety, substance misuse, dementias, neurodevelopmental disorders, and neurocognitive disorders).

 In total, brain health disorders cost the global economy more than $3 trillion per year in lost productivity.

In particular, mental health has been a growing concern among workers as the pandemic has worn on. According to data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), roughly 41% of employees feel burnt out, drained, or exhausted from their work.

 In addition, nearly 1 in 4 employees report frequently feeling down, depressed, or hopeless—yet more than 1 in 3 employees reported having done nothing to cope with these feelings.

 Having a significant proportion of the workforce reporting such symptoms is particularly concerning, as depression is associated with acute changes in cognitive capacity that can persist as residual symptoms after pharmacological treatment.

 These changes in cognitive capacity can have a detrimental impact on problem solving, memory recall, and motivation.

 Given the implications of these effects on workforce productivity and overall well-being, mental health should be among companies most pressing concerns.

Looking beyond mood and psychiatric illness, companies should also consider the implications of dementia and Alzheimer disease. According to a study conducted in Spain, the costs related to loss of labor productivity due to informal caregiving for people with dementia amounted to $5370 per individual per year.

 These informal caregivers experienced partial absenteeism and burdens that disabled them from maximizing productivity. Furthermore, research shows that 23% of individuals who will eventually be diagnosed with Alzheimer disease show accelerated cognitive decline around 5 years before an official diagnosis.

 This accelerated cognitive decline can be clinically referred to as mild cognitive impairment, but it is critical to note that the deterioration in brain health is progressive. Prior to mild cognitive impairment, individuals likely experience a period of undiagnosed mild cognitive decline 6 to 7 years prior, though they may be able to remain in the workforce during this time. 

Notably, issues of mental health and cognitive health are often considered separately, although they are inextricably linked. Brain Capital provides a mechanism to consider these in a more integrated way. 

Brain Capital is a novel form of capital that puts a premium on brain health and brain skills.

 Brain skills are critical in a digitized economy and include self-control, emotional intelligence, creativity, compassion, altruism, systems thinking, collective intelligence, and cognitive flexibility. Brain health must be optimized to support the necessary brain skills to thrive.

We refer to a digitized economy that places a premium on cerebral rather than manual skills as a Brain Economy. Brain Capital is clearly critical in an already digitized economy, especially as automation replaces traditional jobs that relied on manual skill.

 In a Brain Economy, innovation is a tangible and increasingly pivotal measure of employee productivity, and innovation is channeled through employee thoughts, ideas, and creativity.

Innovative Approaches to Promoting Brain Capital in the Workplace

Several approaches can promote Brain Capital in the workplace. These range from multiorganization workplace initiatives (

), to novel accounting frameworks, to social impact investing, to venture capital investing, to novel indices for tracking and measuring issues over time.

Table 1. Examples of multi-organizational workplace initiatives in action

One example is emotional flexibility training for private sector knowledge workers. In 1 pilot study conducted to explore the effects of such a program, emotional flexibility advancement was found to be a highly effective treatment in clinical settings for depression, anxiety, and chronic pain.

 This approach—which had not previously been empirically explored with private sector, high-paced, high-demanding, and highly educated knowledge workers—demonstrated broad improvements in self-efficacy for those in the treatment group versus the control group. These results suggest that emotional flexibility boosts both well-being and performance.

Human capital can be a company’s greatest asset; it can make or break the business strategy and is a key differentiator. A company’s intangible assets, including human capital and culture, are now estimated to comprise on average 52% of a company’s market value.

 To date, given the intangible nature of strong corporate culture, stakeholder leadership, and employee well-being, companies have struggled to quantify the contribution of their human capital assets. But the principles of the Human Capital Accounting Framework, recently published by the World Economic Forum and Willis Towers Watson, could help firms measure Brain Capital effectively.

 A Human Capital Accounting Framework couldenable a company to monitor and assess the return on its investments in its employees in the same way that it measures returns on financial and intellectual capital.

The Global Reporting Initiative (GRI), in partnership with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has developed health metrics that include social impact in current sustainability indexes.

 Encouraged by the added measure of certainty and transparency surrounding their activities, investors large and small would allocate more capital to financing positive initiatives, and entrepreneurs would devise business models whose ambition and growth potential match investor and market demand. Continued refinement of these taxation and accounting practices that prioritize Brain Capital may support improved workplace and societal well-being.

Venture capital companies have recently made record-breaking investments in mental health, with $637 million invested in more than 60 different mental health companies, almost 23 times the investment observed in 2013.

 Lyra Health was just valued at more than $1 billion, making it the first unicorn in mental health.

 The company, which provides mental health benefits for large employers, offers an array of in-person and remote behavioral therapy that helps remove access barriers to high-quality mental health care. The demand for teletherapy services is soaring, particularly as employers look to support workers during the 

. The company has added more than 800,000 new members since the start of the pandemic.

Novel Indices for Tracking and Investing in Brain Capital

 The central components of Brain Capital need to be formalized and developed into an investment plan. Since one cannot manage what one does not measure, developing a Brain Capital Index (BCI) to track the progress of this approach is critical.

Such an index could help track the Brain Capital impacts of companies and governments. The index could also track the value of investments in this area. If such an index were investable—as is the case for mutual funds or exchange-traded fund—it would encourage investment in the entire space by opening it to the passive investor. Index-tracking funds have recently passed the $10 trillion mark of assets under management globally, surpassing assets under active management for the first time. Attracting even a small fraction of global passive investment using a BCI would transform the Brain Economy as a whole. Consequently, creating a well-defined and easily computed index is a key part of investing in a Brain Economy.

The BCI could be associated with a range of potential components. Health-related metrics could include incidence and prevalence metrics, access to care, and relapse rates. In particular, access to mental health care for child and youth populations is of paramount importance, so coverage for families and employees should be prioritized. As of September 9, 2020, the National Council for Behavioral Health stated on its website that the demand for mental healthcare is at an all-time high; however, the ratio of professionals to patients is incredibly low, suggesting it should be tracked. To improve access, more efforts toward training and incentivizing providers need to be made. A BCI could also track purpose at work, as it has been shown to have a range of brain health benefits, including reducing the likelihood of dementia and stroke.

 Created in partnership between Thrive Global, SAP SuccessFactors, Qualtrics, and Fortune, the Thrive XM Index aims to assess and quantify individual experiences to gauge how employee well-being is directly connected to business outcomes. According to the Thrive Global website, the Index will combine employee-reported experience information, HR-reported performance insights, and business performance data, allowing companies to receive a comprehensive view of the way experience metrics (X-data™) and HR metrics (O-data™) can collectively serve as leading indicators for business performance.

Refining the Return on Investment Analysis

An emphasis on returns on investment (ROI) is critical for tracking and investing in Brain Capital. According to a recent report by Deloitte Canada, a pioneering research initiative determined that positive ROI for workplace mental health initiatives are within reach for Canadian businesses.

 Companies with mental health programs in place for 1 year had a median annual ROI of $1.62 for every dollar invested, and the median annual ROI more than doubled for companies with programs in place for 3 or more years, valued at $2.18 for every dollar spent.

 Components of the research included determining and tracking key performance indicators, assessing the effectiveness of interventions with employees, and regularly calculating ROI. Though often overlooked, these elements are essential to demonstrating the financial and nonfinancial benefits of mental health programs. Robust performance measurement enables organizations to “achieve desired program impact, improve adoption rates, and enhance decision-making.”

 Deloitte’s work helps build a framework for determining the ROI of workplace mental health initiatives. However, for optimal, far-reaching impact, the framework must be expanded to include a wider span of issues that Brain Capital encapsulates, such as brain skill issues and aging brain health conditions.

Recommendations for Building Brain Capital at Work

To propel this field forward in the coming years, clear recommendations are required for all stakeholders. These stakeholders include human resource managers, employee benefit managers, social impact investors, and beyond. Recommendations are outlined in 

Table 2. Recommendations for stakeholders

Brain and mind issues must play a central role in measuring the sustainability and societal impact of investment in a workforce. A Brain Capital perspective needs to be integrated into existing frameworks, programs, and investment models to prevent or mitigate the profound effects and economic toll brain health disorders have on the workplace and society.

is a pre-medical human biology student at Stanford University.

is head of the OECD New Approaches to Economic Challenges Unit and Senior Advisor to the OECD Secretary General.

is a neuroscientist and senior director at the Milken Institute Center for Strategic Philanthropy.

is the founding director of the Center for Brain Health at UT Dallas.

is a T. Boone Pickens Distinguished Scientist at the Center for BrainHealth, a co- director at Global Brain Health Institute, professor emeritus at Trinity College Dublin, and founding director of its Institute of Neuroscience.

is the global head of Science for Minds at Johnson & Johnson.

is president of the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association.

is a co-founder of the PRODEO Institute, adjunct associate professor with the Institute for Mental and Physical Health and Clinical Trials (IMPACT) at Deakin University, and an instructor with the Global Brain Health Institute.

1. Ternes K, Iyengar V, Lavretsky H, et al. 

Brain health INnovation diplomacy: a model binding diverse disciplines to manage the promise and perils of technological innovation

2. Patel V, Saxena S, Lund C, et al. The Lancet Commission on global mental health and sustainable development. 

3. Schiavo, A. ‘It’s a fool’s choice’ when employers ignore investments in mental health benefits. 

https://www.benefitnews.com/news/its-a-fools-choice-when-employers-ignore-invest-in-mental-health-benefits

4. Perini G, Ramusino MC, Sinforiani E, et al. Cognitive impairment in depression: recent advances and novel treatments. 

Brain health disorders cost the global economy more than $3 trillion per year in lost productivity. What can we do about it?

Erin Smith

Articles

Our Brains Are Accelerating the Climate Catastrophe

A Brainier Approach to ESG Investing

Feeling Lucky? Convergence Mental Health as a Mechanism for Serendipitous Innovation

Smart Growth: the Case for Measuring Brain Capital

Move Over Data, Brain Capital is the New Oil

Convergence Mental Health: A New Pathway for Transdisciplinary Innovation and Entrepreneurship