Promotion, prevention and early intervention in mental health: Two new national documents

Abstract

Mental health has been identified as a key priority area by NSW Health and also nationally. Recent documents have highlighted the increasing burden imposed by mental health problems and disorders in our society. Depression alone has been predicted as one of the greatest problems internationally by the year 2020. Promotion, prevention and early intervention for mental health has been identified as important to progress, in order to diminish this burden. There is growing evidence that effective promotion, prevention and early intervention initiatives can reduce the prevalence of mental health problems, and lessen the severity and duration of mental illness.