Key findings
People with government disability supports are more likely to receive mental health hospital care
In 2022–23, people with government disability supports:
- had a rate of ED presentations for mental health care 9.3 times as high as people with no government disability supports after adjusting for age
- had a rate of hospitalisations for mental health care 10.8 times as high as people with no government disability supports after adjusting for age
- were 6.7 times as likely to have had at least one hospitalisation for mental health care compared with people with no government disability supports (2.8% vs 0.42%).
National Disability Insurance Scheme participants receiving the Disability Support Pension are even more likely to receive mental health hospital care
In 2022–23, National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) participants receiving the Disability Support Pension (DSP):
- had a rate of ED presentations for mental health care 16.0 times as high as people with no government disability supports after adjusting for age
- were much more likely to have had at least one mental health-related ED presentation compared with people with no government disability supports (6% vs 1%).
- had a rate of hospitalisations for mental health care 19.9 times as high as people with no government disability supports after adjusting for age.
These numbers point to the real experiences of people receiving government disability supports, suggesting ongoing mental health needs that may not be fully met by existing service arrangements. At the same time, hospital care can be a vital and positive support for some people. It can provide timely assessment, treatment and safety when it is needed. More work is needed to explain the underlying cause of our findings.
What do these results mean?
This report presents findings in a way that supports disability advocates, researchers, and policymakers to better understand patterns of mental health service use within this community. Our hope is that these insights will be used by a wide range of audiences to advance a shared goal: improving mental health outcomes for people with disability.
Nevertheless, these findings should be interpreted with care. Differences in eligibility criteria and disability type were not examined but may have affected rates of hospital use across government disability support groups. Learn more about What we cannot see in the data and How to read this report.
This report was written with the help of an inclusive research team that included people with lived experience, expertise in disability, as well as expertise in health service design, advocacy, research, and data analysis. People with government disability supports are much more likely to require hospital-based mental health care. This finding supports concerns long raised by people with disability that help is often not available early or consistently, leading to care only at crisis point. The even higher rates for people receiving both NDIS and DSP reinforce concerns that people with more complex needs are not well supported across systems and instead rely on emergency and hospital care - highlighting broader gaps in how supports work together. Ongoing work should continue to be guided by people with disability, so that the research reflects their lived experience around accessing mental health care.
These findings point to consistently higher rates of hospital use for mental health care among people receiving government disability supports, highlighting a need to strengthen mental health support across both disability and mainstream services. Service planning and integration across acute, primary care and community-based settings should be informed by a clearer understanding of the factors driving these outcomes.
Members of our inclusive research team and the broader disability community have asked for better data to strengthen their calls for improved mental health care for people with disability. These findings highlight the need to better understand why people with disability reach crisis point, and can inform the development of more integrated supports – designed with the people directly affected.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like further information on how to use this data to support your work or want to collaborate with us.
These results provide population-level patterns of mental health service use among people with disability, by type of government disability support. Researchers are encouraged to access the downloadable data and to pursue cross-sector collaboration with disability service providers and academic partners to extend, explain, and translate these findings. Explore the data.
Future research may look to identify the gaps and barriers in mental health care for people with disability that may contribute to higher hospital use. This may include examining how disability supports, income support, and mainstream mental health services interact – and how these pathways vary for people receiving different types of government disability supports.
Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like further information on how to use this data to support your work or want to collaborate with us.
Not all people with disability are well represented in this work
Our findings do not represent all people with disability. Our research looks at a sub-group of people with disability who receive government disability supports. This is around 25% of the disability population. Learn more about How people with disability are represented in this report.
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We are not reporting any results on First Nations people
Work involving First Nations people with disabilities should be directed by those who share the lived realities as First Nations people with disabilities.
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The data does not represent all areas of Australia
Hospital records from Western Australia and the Northern Territory were not included in our data, so these jurisdictions are not included in this analysis.
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Culturally and linguistically diverse communities are under-represented
These results will not represent people with culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds well, as this cohort faces unique barriers to accessing disability supports.
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Data on LGBTIQA+ community are poorly captured in administrative systems
The data quality for LGBTIQA+ people is poor. Because this might produce misleading or wrong results, we have not reported data for this group.