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Mental health
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This site describes the activity and characteristics of Australia’s health and social care services accessed by people with a mental illness. It includes mental health-related services provided by various levels of government, how much was spent, who provided the funds, where mental health services were delivered and data on the mental health workforce. Safety, quality and monitoring measures are also reported via the mental health-related indicators and the impact of COVID-19.

1 in 5 adults and 1 in 7 young people experienced a mental health disorder in the previous 12 months

4.7 million people (18% of Australians) filled a mental health-related prescription in 2021–22

$11.6 billion was spent on mental health services in 2020-21, around 7.3% of the total government health expenditure

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Latest updates

The Mental Health Online Report is updated progressively throughout the year as new data becomes available to ensure that the most up to date information is available at a point in time. Updates to the site generally occur in February, April, July and October.

A full list of sections on this site can be found under the Overview, Topic areas and Monitoring pages. Summary data from all sections can also be found on the mental health services page. The Reports page provides information about mental health-related articles and the Resources page provides links to technical notes, data sources and archive data.