Mental health issues top chronic illness list, new census data shows - Sydney Morning Herald
About one-third of Australians have a diagnosed long-term health condition, the nation's 2021 census reveals, with mental health issues surpassing every other chronic illness.
On Tuesday the Australian Bureau of Statistics will release the first tranche of census data, showing more than 8 million people have a long-term health condition, including about 2.2 million (roughly one in 12 people) who have a diagnosed mental illness.
Jasmine Elliott is among the more than 2.2 million Australians with a diagnosed mental health condition.Credit:Jason South
For the first time, the 2021 census collected information on diagnosed, ongoing health conditions. On August 10 last year, millions of people across Australia were asked to disclose any long-term health issues from a list of nine conditions – arthritis, diabetes, heart attack, asthma, lung or kidney disease, stroke, cancer and mental health.
The census found that in a year when calls for mental health support reached record levels as the coronavirus pandemic drove up stress, anxiety and depression, there were about 80,000 more Australians with diagnosed mental health conditions than had arthritis, which was the second most common long-term ailment.
The census data reveals more than 2.1 million Australians reported a diagnosis of arthritis.
Asthma was the third most common long-term condition, with more than 2.06 million people reporting a diagnosis.
More than 1 million Australians said they had been diagnosed with a long-term condition that was not on the list.
Jasmine Elliott is among the more than 2.2 million people with a diagnosed mental health condition.
She has faced anxiety and an eating disorder and first experienced symptoms of mental illness when she was a teenager.
The 21-year-old said a mixture of the isolation she experienced after moving to regional Victoria for university just before the start of the coronavirus lockdowns and the pressure of her studies had exacerbated her mental health issues.
"Even though I knew it was impacting my life, it's one of those illnesses that's really not understood in the community and I certainly didn't know that what I was experiencing was an eating disorder," she said.
Recovering and seeking mental health support during the lockdown periods was "really challenging", Elliott said, adding that as a young person she felt particularly vulnerable.
"We have so many young people, like myself, who rely on casual work, and particularly in the hospitality and retail sectors, which were affected quite largely by COVID," she said.
"I'm doing very well now, which I'm very, very grateful for. But certainly, there's this thought that you have to be quite unwell before you seek help, and that's a symptom of the fact that we don't look at early intervention as much as we probably should."
Jayashri Kulkarni, a professor of psychiatry at Alfred Health and Monash University who specialises in women's health, said at the height of the lockdowns she and her colleagues were experiencing record demand for mental health support, particularly among those bearing the brunt of caring responsibilities.
Despite lockdowns easing and restrictions being wound back, Kulkarni has observed a recent rise in people presenting with depression, anxiety and eating disorders.
"The depression and anxiety disorders in particular seem to have really escalated lately," she said.
"There are a lot of relationship breakdowns and life-changing issues happening. It is a slightly different ilk to what we were seeing during lockdowns, when many people were presenting with a real sense of panic and symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder."
Kulkarni said there remained strong demand for support for eating disorders, from binge-eating and bulimia to anorexia nervosa.
"We do see eating disorders as an expression sometimes of depression, or as an expression of trauma, or response to other really stressful life events," she said.
Almost 4.8 million Australians reported having one of the long-term health conditions listed on the census form, while nearly 1.5 million had two of the conditions and more than 750,000 had three or more.
The proportion of people with a long-term health condition increased with age. More than three out of five Australians (62.9 per cent) aged over 65 reported having at least one long-term condition, compared with one in five 15- to 34-year-olds.
Women were more likely to report a long-term condition than males, with 34 per cent having one or more, compared with just under 30 per cent of men.
Men most commonly reported asthma and mental health conditions, while the most common among women were arthritis and mental health.
The bureau's Australian Statistician Dr David Gruen said the findings would be crucial to understanding people's health and where to target care.
"This is critical data to inform planning and service delivery decisions about how treatment and care is provided for all Australians," he said.
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