When discussing economic crises, people immediately consider policy and strategy issues: misaligned incentives, weak regulation, inadequate oversight. Environmental crises follow the same pattern: emissions, land use, and exploitation of nature.
But how do we address mental health crises — including Indonesia's own? The crisis represents more than isolated individual stories of weakness. Rather, it stems from policy design, strategy, and systems that gradually generate waves of problems in subsequent generations.
The Mental Health Crisis: By the Numbers
In 2021, nearly one in seven people globally (approximately 1.1 billion individuals) lived with mental disorders, with anxiety and depression being most prevalent. Depression and anxiety alone account for an estimated 12 billion lost workdays annually.
European OECD estimates place total mental health-related costs at over 4% of GDP (approximately €600 billion annually) — encompassing healthcare services, social security, and productivity losses.
Indonesia's Adolescent Mental Health
The Indonesia National Adolescent Mental Health Survey (I-NAMHS) and UNICEF adolescent health profile paint a stark picture:
Additional research found nearly one in four adolescents aged 16–18 demonstrate significant depressive symptoms.
A nation realistically faces a mental health crisis when:
- Mental disorder burden is high and represents a leading cause of disability
- Most individuals with mental disorders lack adequate services
- Economic costs exceed several percent of GDP (>4% in OECD countries)
- Systems focus on emergency response rather than community prevention
By these metrics, Indonesia clearly faces significant challenges.
Crisis Duration and Economic Cost
Unlike infectious outbreaks controllable within 1–2 years, mental health crises span years and generations. WHO's "Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2030" acknowledges that genuine mental health transformation realistically requires 1–2 decades of sustained commitment: governance transformation, community services, promotion-prevention initiatives, data systems, AI technology, and research.
Mental ill-health costs approximately 4% of GDP in wealthy nations; global estimates range from 2.3–4.4% of GDP when including direct and indirect expenses. Essentially, every nation pays an invisible "tax" of several percentage points of GDP annually due to poor mental health.
"Will societies continue paying this tax, or begin redesigning systems?"
Policy and Strategy Analysis: Root Causes
Like economic and environmental crises, mental health crises emerge from policy decisions and priorities:
1. Nutrition and the First 1,000 Days of Life
Many children lack optimal nutrition and parental stimulation from conception through age two — a period determining brain structure, emotional regulation, and learning capacity. Early deficits create fragile foundations for mental health and non-communicable diseases.
2. Work-Family Unfriendly Policies
Extended work hours, normalised overtime, hours-long commutes, and expectations of constant availability exhaust parents. WHO identifies work environments with excessive burden, discrimination, and job insecurity as primary mental disorder risk factors.
3. Limited Parental Leave and Childcare Support
International research demonstrates adequate parental leave (including paternity), quality childcare, and proper parenting support correlate with reduced postpartum depression and enhanced child health and development long-term.
4. Child-Unfriendly Urban Environments
Traffic-congested, public-space-scarce, pollution-heavy cities force families into "survival mode" rather than "growth mode."
5. Mental Health Service Access and Stigma
Psychologists and psychiatrists remain heavily concentrated in major cities, while disorder burden disperses across schools, workplaces, and communities. Mental health remains positioned as supplementary rather than central to SDG 3.4.
6. Unregulated Digital Spaces
Platforms maximise screen time; regulation and literacy lag behind. Many adolescents spend 6–8 daily hours on social media; repeated global studies show strong correlations between compulsive social media use and increased depression, anxiety, sleep disruption, and cognitive-social impacts.
The "Strawberry Generation" Myth
Public discourse labels young people as "strawberry generation": fragile, easily damaged, pressure-intolerant. While appealing because it simplifies issues to individual "weak mentality," contextual analysis reveals they grew up within:
- Physically exhausted, time-scarce families
- Active digital family environments (algorithms, influencers, content) shaping values and identity
This represents systemic policy and strategy accumulation, not merely individual character failure.
SDM vs. Whole Human Development
Many policy documents emphasise developing "superior human resources, work-ready, industry 4.0-prepared." Economically logical, yet fundamentally different from holistic health perspectives.
The "Work-Ready SDM" model views humans as production inputs — work speed, market flexibility, pressure tolerance. Family, physical health, mental wellbeing, and life meaning become "personal concerns."
The "Whole Human" model positions humans as development's ultimate goal: physical health, mental clarity, warm relationships, strong character, meaningful living — from which productivity and competitiveness emerge.
Nations with strong family policies, parental leave, childcare, and social protection demonstrate superior health, education, and child wellbeing outcomes alongside robust economic competitiveness.
"Building whole humans is nobler. And strategically, it proves wiser long-term."
Family-Centred Policy Implementation
If families constitute the primary and ultimate mental health foundation, this commitment must appear in laws, regulations, employment policies, and school and workplace practices.
Parental Time and Presence
Implement rigorous maternity and paternity leave, realistic work hours, hybrid options for parents — not merely work-life balance slogans.
Quality Childcare and Parenting
Truly educational, safe early childhood centres; parenting programs and paternal role strengthening through health clinics, community health centres, schools, and communities.
Digital Protection
Age and usage limits for adolescent social media; child modes on platforms; critical digital literacy and clear cyberbullying reporting channels in schools and campuses.
Mental Health System Integration
Psychology services, family counselling, and prevention programs across health clinics, schools, and workplaces; BPJS and private insurance covering promotion-prevention interventions, not merely crisis hospitalisation.
"Without this commitment, systems essentially demand family strength while systematically weakening them."
Prevention, Technology, and the Path Forward
Like economic and environmental crises, mental health crises won't resolve through downstream patch-fixes: expanding psychiatric beds, constructing new facilities, or increasing medications alone. WHO's Mental Health Action Plan 2013–2030 emphasises four pillars: leadership, community services, promotion-prevention, and robust data systems.
The 21st century offers major opportunities in technology-enabled prevention. AI advances enable mental health and NCD risk screening. DexWellness develops innovative research and solutions addressing this gap — stigma, access barriers, professional shortages.
"Scalable, affordable screening reaching remote regions represents transformative potential."
If policy shifts from curative to preventive, leverages scalable screening technology reaching peripheries, develops triage with telehealth infrastructure, while establishing family-centred and human-centred policies, then rather than merely reducing today's crisis burden, the nation would transform the life trajectory of Indonesia's 2045 generation.
Closing Vision
Perhaps future reflection won't label them "strawberry generation" but rather the generation that recovered from redesigned policy — inheriting more humane, holistic systems.