Kenyan young adults rank third out of 84 countries in mental health, defying a widening global crisis that now affects more than four in ten of their peers worldwide and threatens long-term workforce productivity.
- •That is the central finding of the 2025 Global Mind Health Report published by Sapien Labs, a Washington, D.C.- nonprofit that surveyed nearly one million internet-enabled respondents across Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas.
- •The report shows that 41% of young adults aged 18 to 34 globally fall into what it terms a “mind health crisis,” with impairments across emotional regulation, cognition, social functioning and physical resilience severe enough to hinder daily life and work.
- •By contrast, several Sub-Saharan African countries dominate the top of the rankings: Ghana ranks first worldwide for youth mental health, followed by Nigeria and Kenya, with Zimbabwe and Tanzania completing the top five.
“We assessed a wide range of capacities essential for navigating life’s challenges and found that many young adults are struggling. Alongside depression and anxiety, they often experience challenges across emotional control, handling relationships with others, and their ability to focus,” said Tara Thiagarajan, lead author of the report and Sapien Labs’ founder and chief scientist.
Kenya’s young adults posted an average Mind Health Quotient (MHQ) score of 63, compared with 107 among Kenyans aged 55 and above. The generational gap is consistent across many of the surveyed countries.
That divergence widened during the Covid-19 pandemic and has remained largely unchanged over the past five years.
For business leaders and policymakers, the implications are significant as the 18-34 cohort represents the core of the global labor force pipeline. A sustained deterioration in cognitive and emotional capacity at that scale risks lowering productivity growth, increasing healthcare burdens, and weakening long-term economic performance.
The report attributes much of the global decline to four interrelated factors: earlier smartphone adoption in childhood, rising consumption of ultra-processed foods, weakening family bonds, and diminished spirituality. Countries were ranked across these dimensions, revealing sharp contrasts between high-income and lower-income regions.
An apparent inverse relationship emerges between national wealth and youth mind health outcomes. Young adults in the U.S., U.K., parts of Europe and other high-income economies cluster near the bottom of the rankings. The U.K., for example, ranks 81st out of 84 countries for youth, with an average MHQ score of 20 among 18- to 34-year-olds, while the U.S. ranks 58th with a score of 36.
“Because when you see evidence that almost half of all young adults globally, the heart of the workforce, are struggling with an array of mental health challenges, that means we are facing a crisis that can undermine the health of entire economies and societies. It’s a clear signal that we need to act to address the root causes,” said David Blanchflower, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College.
Kenya also ranks 14th globally in youth spirituality, defined in the survey as a sense of connection to a higher power, and 73rd in ultra-processed food consumption among young adults, placing it among countries with relatively low intake. Higher spirituality scores and lower ultra-processed food consumption are strongly associated in the data with improved mind health outcomes.
Across the dataset, young adults with high spirituality ratings scored roughly 20 MHQ points higher than those with very low ratings. Meanwhile, mind health declines systematically with greater consumption of ultra-processed foods, which researchers estimate account for 15% to 30% of the mental health burden after controlling for other variables.
Among respondents aged 18 to 24, those who acquired smartphones at younger ages were more likely to report adult struggles across emotional control, focus, and relationships. Countries in Sub-Saharan Africa reported later average ages of smartphone adoption compared with wealthier peers.
Family cohesion also plays a measurable role. Respondents reporting poor family relationships were nearly four times more likely to fall into distressed or struggling MHQ categories than those who reported close family ties.
While Sub-Saharan Africa outperforms higher-income regions, the generational divide persists within African countries as well. In Kenya, as in other top-ranked nations, older adults still post markedly stronger mind health scores than younger cohorts, underscoring that the global slide affects all regions, albeit to varying degrees.
For economies such as Kenya, the findings offer both reassurance and a warning. Strong youth rankings relative to global peers suggest that cultural and lifestyle factors may be acting as protective buffers. However, the persistence of a generational decline signals that without deliberate policies around digital exposure, nutrition,and family stability, the same downward pressures visible in wealthier economies could intensify over time.
