National Health Priority Essay 2022

HEALTHCARE
National Health Priority

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A National Health Priority – Mental Health in Australia
The intent of this essay is to discuss one national health priority in Australia and
illustrating its impact on the population of the country. Besides this, the essay is also
highlighting the availability of present health promotions that are being used to deal with the
health issue. In the end, it is presenting the available gaps in the health promotion of the
health issue.
Mental Health Disorders is included as one of the major health priorities because it is
related to the conditions and behavior which affect the social working and capacity of day to
day life. Besides this, the cases related to mental disorders are increasing in number in the
Australian region in comparison to other health illnesses. Mental health disorders led to death
which was identified as the major cause of around 5715 death registered, highlighting 4.1%
of all the death registered in Australia in the year 2007. This was considered to be an increase
of around 559 (11%) the time it is compared with 2006 records. In all, there were around
19734 deaths which were linked with Mental health disorder (Australian Bureau of Statistics,
2009).
Mental illness is said to be very common in Australia. It has been believed that there
is one out of five (that is 20%) people in Australia that lie under the age group of 16-85 years
deal with mental illness in any year (Black Dog Institute, 2020). The most general illness in
this is anxiety, substance use disorder, and depressive. All these three types most of the time
occur in combination. For instance, an individual with anxiety also holds the chance to
develop depression, or an individual with depression can also get involved in using alcohol or
drugs as a self-medicate effort (Willis, 2019). Out of 20% of the people in Australia who
have a mental illness, 11.5% deal with a single disorder, whereas there are 8.5% of the people
who deal with two or more mental disorders. As per the analysis, around half of the people in

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Australia that are 45% will deal with mental illness in their lifetime (Black Dog Institute,
2020).
The inception of mental illness is classically about mid-to-late teenage years and the
youth of Australia that lies under the age group of 18-24 years holds the higher occurrence of
any of the mental illness in comparison to other age groups. As per the data presented by the
Mission Australia’s Youth Survey 2014, there is one out of five young people (i.e. 21.2%)
who lie under the age group of 15-19 years encountered the standards for a likely grave
mental disorder. The general type of mental illness that is found among the people of
Australia is substance use disorder (5%), depressive disorder (6%), and anxiety (14%) (Black
Dog Institute, 2020).
As per the national survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics of the
Mental Health and Wellbeing, provided a complete approximation for the cases of mental
disorders among the adults of Australia over their lifetime and in the previous 12 months
(Cook, 2019). As per the survey conducted on the Australians some of the occurrence and
impact of mental health condition is presented below:
As per the recent survey, it has been estimated that there were around 4.8 million
people of Australia (i.e. 20.1%) are experiencing behavioral or mental conditions in the year
2017-18. This is considered to be an increase of around 2.6% from the year 2014-15, majorly
because the increased number of people are being registered related to anxiety disorders and
depression (Cook, 2019).
As per the survey of mental health and wellness, directed by the Australian Child and
Adolescent conducted in 2013 and 2014, revealed that there were around 14% of the youth
who lie under the age group of 4 to 17 years dealing with a mental illness in the 12 months
before the survey was conducted (Cook, 2019).