Impact of mental health on the Australian population
As evidenced by the presence of mental health in the Sustainable Development Goals, there has been a growing recognition of the critical role mental health plays in achieving global development goals in recent years. One of the primary causes of morbidity and mortality is depression globally. In consideration the data from World Health Organization, Suicide is the fourth highest cause of mortality in those aged 15 to 29 worldwide (World Health Organization, 2021). In 2015, mental health or substance use problems responsible for nearly 13% of Australia’s overall disease burden, which make it fourth biggest disease in terms of financial and other impact it is putting on government. Dealing with the harmful effects of psychological and drug use problems is responsible for 97 percent of the total burden caused by these diseases (AIHW, 2019). Mental health week in Australia is a national week celebrated worldwide on the nearby dates of world mental health day which is 10th October. It is an awareness week in Australia regarding the mental wellbeing. While discussing about the South Australia, every 1 of 5 people is suffering from mental illness. Approximately 19.5 percent people are suffering from some kind of mental health problem (Venning, et al., 2013). Mental Health Week (MHW) is a prominent chance to address and identify the most important link between social factors and psychological health, as well as enhance appropriate preventive methods to keep people mentally fit and active. It is integrated by the Western Australian Association for Mental Health, with assistance from the WA Mental Health Commission. Government and non-government organizations in Australia play a vital role in making adequate policies and strategies for controlling the mental health cases which will be described in this essay. This essay will describe about the importance of social media and other media platforms in raising the mental health promotion. Importance of engaging community will also be discussed in the essay.
Nearly half of the Australian people are suffering from mental health issue in some part of their life. People with serious mental illnesses die considerably sooner than they should up to two decades earlier as a result of avoidable physical problems. It is important to make people aware that they can receive mental health care when required. In 2022, Mental Health Week in WA will be held from 8-15 October with the theme: ‘Where we live. How we live. What we’ve lived.’ Understanding how the body, mind and environment intersect is essential to overall wellbeing. Physical health both inside of us and in the world around us has a major impact on mental health. The nutrition we consume, movement of our bodies, the health of the planet and quality of our housing and neighbourhoods all play a part in building health communities and individuals (Mental Health Australia, 2013). Our bodies keep physical score of what we experience it’s important to encourage a trauma-informed lens in trying to understand challenging behaviours, intrusive thoughts and reactions. Learning how to process, heal and grow from negative experiences shapes our resilience, access to new opportunities, coping skills, strong connections and relationships, and quality of life. In year 1985, it was first organized and now it has become an annual event. The date of this week is not fixed however, this week always include 10th October (auspire, 2021). This effort is critical in improving people’s awareness of what good mental health means, reducing stigma, and encouraging individuals to take meaningful steps to enhance their psychological health and wellness.
Initiatives taken by the government and non-governmental organizations to improve mental health care
The commonwealth Australia play a major role in mental health policy check, making budget and research issue. All the territories provide public acute mental health services to the Australian population. Non-government organization also plays an important role in provide range of community based mental health service. There are various departments which provide services for people affected by mental health services. These are Community-based care services, Community-based support services, general practitioners, supported accommodation services, psychiatric disability support services and mental health specialists (McGorry, Bates & Birchwood, 2013).
The aim of mental health Australia is to guiding Australian populations for the issues related to mental health, enhancing mentally healthy community and making influence on psychological health reform so that guidelines of regulatory bodies include all the existing mental health issues, perform mental health research and carry out consultation for representing the best concern of everyone. These advance attempts in policy and guiding reform are fulfilled by the commitment to making more adequate and innovative research for the mental health care provision. Along with this, mental health Australia also focuses on human rights of people while providing mental health services to them (Australian Government Department of Health, 2020).
Government of Australia has implemented numerous plans and policies for improving the mental health situations in Australia. Some of these schemes are –
- Fifth National Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Plan – In this plan, all the state and territorial governments are committed for integrated mental health care and taking suicide prevention action. The duration of this plan is 2017-22.
- National Mental Health Policy – It is a commitment for always improving mental health services in Australia.
- National Mental Health and Wellbeing Pandemic Response Plan – This plan was majorly implemented for promoting the mental health services in Australia during and after the pandemic.
- Roadmap to National Mental Health Reform – It outlines the government direction to create a strong mental health system in Australia. The duration of this roadmap is 2012 to 2022.
- Vision 2030 – It creates a national framework for linked and adequate psychological health as well as suicide prevention system to accessing the need of Australian population.
- National Mental Health Workforce Strategy Taskforce – The role of this plan is to frame a strategy which will include the distribution, supply and quality of Australia’ mental health workforce (Government of South Australia, 2021).
Even after all these initiatives; there is lack of treatment facilities in the government sector for enhancing the treatment gap in mental health. Non-government organizations are playing an important role in controlling the mental health status in Australia. These organizations or services are not only helping in reducing the gap but also providing cheaper replicable model of care. These non-governmental organizations are active in large sectors such as schizophrenia, child mental health, care of dementia as well as controlling drug and alcohol abuse. There are various services provided by these non-government organizations including rehabilitation, providing training, capacity building, research, community care, providing awareness and guidance for mental health care. For example, BeyondBlue is a national level initiative for controlling the depression which is established with the funding provided by commonwealth and state government of Australia (Yap, Reavley & Jorm, 2012). The objective of this program is to reduce the depression prevalence in Australia and controlling its harmful impact. It provides a 24 hour information helpline service for controlling mental health directory in Australia.
Making collaborative partnership with these private service organizations enhance the ability in the community psychological health services system for providing better services to the general people who are in seek of help. It includes enhancing the self-management strategies in people, interpersonal and daily living activities (The Australian National University, 2021). These services include consumer driven programs in which they can better share their experiences and motivate people to collaborate with others for improving mental health conditions.
To be a part of a community can always be helpful to individual’s psychological health. Taking part in the collaborative and supportive community activity provides a feeling of social connection. It can also provide a normal life better direction and significance. A shared geography, activities, personal experiences and histories, or a leading cause can all be used to form communities (AGDOH, 2021). Many of the research state that talking with each other through internet forums, social networking sites, or in reality can help them grow a better perspective, boost their self-esteem, and increase their pleasure of life. Around a quarter of Australian adults are not members of any social and community organisations. Getting someone to talk to and depend on, and also forming social bonds through hobbies or a social circle, can all significantly reduce the risk of psychological anguish.
Role of media and community engagement in promoting mental well-being
There is growing evidence for the efficacy of community-based psychosocial interventions administered by non-specialists. Mental diseases have a strong connection to society issues in terms of occurrence, prevalence, and outcome. Accessibility to and incorporation of psychiatric services into community can improve service usability, acceptance, cost, and manageability, as well as medication adherence and the chance of favourable clinical results. Furthermore, community programs is highly important in raising awareness of mental health issues, eliminating stigma and biases, fostering healing and social inclusion, and minimizing psychological diseases (Kohrt et al., 2018).
The social media has contributed to mental disorder stigma by depicting people with mental disorders in excessive, erroneous, and humorous approaches, as well as supplying misleading information which impact on psychological health. According to social cognitive theory, learning happens not just by self-experience but also through observing others. People learn about actions and human norms such as codes of conduct by watching television. Television instils or promotes social approaches on how to deal with individual who is suffering from mental disorder. People depend on social media to form their impressions of people with mental problems since they lack direct experience with them (Khorgade, 2021).
Regrettably, the media frequently portrays people with mental illnesses as aggressive, deadly, unexpected, and to fault for their condition, all of which are enormous exaggerations and false representation of reality that are absolutely false. News coverage is frequently sensationalised, with spectacular portrayals of violent attacks and killings done by people with psychiatric illnesses on purpose. Indeed, psychiatric disorders are one of the factors contributing to the surge in youth violence (Latha et al., 2020). The media, on the other hand, fails to inform the public that only a small percentage of people with mental illnesses commit serious crimes, and that the real prevalence of crime by people with mental problems is lower than those of normal humans. Early treatments, addressing vulnerable populations and community participation are all strategies for promoting positive teenage mental health.
Teenagers also devote a significant period of time to social media, which is described as “internet capabilities that support people, societies, and organisations to work collaboratively, relate, communicate, and make connections by empowering them to generate, co-create, modify, share, and take part in easily accessible user-generated information.” People’s perceptions and attitudes are shaped in large part by the media. Several studies have found a link between the media’s portrayal of mental disorder and the stigma associated with it. The media can be a double-edged sword, portraying negative preconceptions about mental illness while also being a great instrument for reducing stigma (O’Reilly et al., 2018). Media helps normalise talking about these issues and looking for assistance if it is handled correctly. This is the most potent medium for sensitising individuals about psychological health and assisting them modify their unfavourable attitudes about a psychological disorder if handled in a responsible way without sensitising mental health situations.
Conclusion
Every year, Mental Health Week is observed across Australia, with each state or territory taking its own topic and hosting its own programs. Recent events have tried to bring the socioeconomic factors of psychological health into centre of attention across most of the communities, and it’s critical to seize this moment of awareness to emphasise the importance of protecting people’s social factors of psychological health both during and after COVID-19 emergency has passed. It is necessary to have a comprehensive approach to mental health, share ideas, and learn from one another through daily activity in order to develop strong communities. Furthermore, social networking allows users to connect more, allowing for more health data to be communicated. It’s critical to ensure that resources are available for encouraging a psychologically healthy lifestyle and understand mental wellbeing, and social networking could be a cost-effective way to do so. Involving community members in mental health awareness activity is important for raising the feeling and strategies of self-care. When community people will understand the importance of self-care and mental health wellbeing, they will interact more with each other by different activities which will increase socialization in them. It is required to conduct more programs from government to reduce the mental health stigma and making people more aware about the importance of mental well-being.
References
AGDOH. (2021). Connectedness – Community. Www.headtohealth.gov.au.
https://www.headtohealth.gov.au/meaningful-life/connectedness/community
Auspire. (2021). 2021 Mental Health Week. Auspire.
https://auspire.org.au/event/2021-mental-health-week/#:~:text=Mental%20Health%20Week%20is%20recognised
Australian Government Department of Health. (2020, August 11). What we’re doing about mental health. Australian Government Department of Health. https://www.health.gov.au/health-topics/mental-health-and-suicide-prevention/what-were-doing-about-mental-health
Government of South Australia. (2021). Non-government mental health partnerships. Www.sahealth.sa.gov.au.
https://www.sahealth.sa.gov.au/wps/wcm/connect/public+content/sa+health+internet/about+us/department+for+health+and+wellbeing/system+performance+division/non-government+mental+health+partnerships/non-government+mental+health+partnerships
Khorgade, G. (2021). Mental Health and The Role of Media. Www.omicsonline.org. https://www.omicsonline.org/open-access/mental-health-and-the-role-of-media-113760.html
Kohrt, B., Asher, L., Bhardwaj, A., Fazel, M., Jordans, M., Mutamba, B., Nadkarni, A., Pedersen, G., Singla, D., & Patel, V. (2018). The Role of Communities in Mental Health Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Meta-Review of Components and Competencies. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 15(6), 1279. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15061279
Latha, K., Meena, K., Pravitha, M., Dasgupta, M., & Chaturvedi, S. (2020). Effective use of social media platforms for promotion of mental health awareness. Journal of Education and Health Promotion, 9(1), 124. https://doi.org/10.4103/jehp.jehp_90_20
McGorry, P., Bates, T., & Birchwood, M. (2013). Designing youth mental health services for the 21st century: examples from Australia, Ireland and the UK. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 202(s54), s30-s35.
Mental Health Australia. (2013, August 26). What does the Mental Health Australia do? Mental Health Australia.
https://mhaustralia.org/resources/frequently-asked-questions/what-does-mhca-do
O’Reilly, M., Dogra, N., Hughes, J., Reilly, P., George, R., & Whiteman, N. (2018). Potential of social media in promoting mental health in adolescents. Health Promotion International, 34(5). https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/day056
The Australian National University. (2021). Non-Government Organisations (NGOs). Bluepages.anu.edu.au. https://bluepages.anu.edu.au/other-resources/non-government-organisation-websites/
Venning, A., Wilson, A., Kettler, L., & Eliott, J. (2013). Mental health among youth in South Australia: A survey of flourishing, languishing, struggling, and floundering. Australian Psychologist, 48(4), 299-310.
World Health Organization. (2021). Mental Health. Www.who.int; World Health Organization.
https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_1
Yap, M. B., Reavley, N. J., & Jorm, A. F. (2012). Associations between awareness of beyondblue and mental health literacy in Australian youth: Results from a national survey. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 46(6), 541-552.
Order an Essay Now & Get These Features For Free:
Turnitin Report
Formatting
Title Page
Citation
Outline
