Universal Music Group partners with Amber Health and Project Healthy Minds to expand mental health support

A structural shift, not a gesture

Universal Music Group announced on May 13 two new partnerships aimed at improving mental health access for its artists, songwriters, and employees. According to Billboard, UMG will work with Amber Health to provide 24/7 mental health services in North America, covering crisis response, care planning, and specialized referrals. The arrangement extends to behavioral health support for UMG employees in the United States and Canada.

The second partnership sees UMG join Project Healthy Minds as a founding member of its workforce mental health research initiative, making UMG the first music company to take that step. The project, developed in collaboration with academic partners including Harvard Business School, aims to build a standardized framework measuring workforce mental health and its relationship to organizational performance.

Context and numbers

The scale of the problem is not trivial. A 2019 study by Swedish digital distribution platform Record Union found that more than 73 percent of independent music makers reported symptoms of mental illness. More recently, Australia's music industry charity Support Act published its Mental Health and Wellbeing Survey 2024, which found that 53.5 percent of Australian music and creative workers face high or very high psychological distress.

These are industry-wide figures, but UMG is positioning itself as the company willing to act on them from the inside. Susan Mazo, UMG's chief impact officer, framed the move as a redesign of how the industry approaches wellbeing, with an emphasis on expanding access and reducing stigma.

A pattern, not a pivot

This is not UMG's first move in this space. In February 2025, the company partnered with Nashville-based non-profit Music Health Alliance on the Music Industry Mental Health Fund, which provides outpatient mental health resources for music professionals across the United States. That effort built on an earlier healthcare access program launched with MHA in April 2021. UMG and Apple Music also launched Sound Therapy globally, a wellness collection designed to support focus, relaxation, and sleep.

Whether the new partnerships translate into measurable improvements for the people who actually make the music remains to be seen. The commitments are specific enough to be taken seriously, and the involvement of Harvard Business School in the research component suggests at least an intention to measure outcomes rather than just announce them.