The lowest average mental health scores came from the English-speaking world

Eight out of 10 of the countries with the lowest average MHQ scores were from the region the report calls the Core Anglosphere. From the worst reported mental health to the best, the list includes; South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Ireland, India, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.

In contrast, most of the highest-ranking average mental health scores came from Latin America, Spain, and a few French-speaking countries in Europe and Africa.

National economic indicators of prosperity, like high GDP per capita, turned out to be correlated with lower average mental health scores for the surveyed populations, much to the researchers' surprise.

"This belies the commonly held belief that national economic prosperity translates to greater social wellbeing, where these correlations would be expected to be positive and not significantly negative," the report reads.

The authors also considered how cultural values vary between countries. Populations that reported prioritizing work performance and individualism in surveys for the separate GLOBE Project tended to score lower on the mental health quotient, indicating some distress.

Andrea Michelson