Orygen leaders (L-R) Nataya Branjerdporn, Prof. Jo Robinson, Prof. Eóin Killackey and Prof. Pat McGorry with Elisha London from Prospira Global and Orygen consultant Peter Varnum.
Mental health took centre stage for the first time at a High-level Meeting of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly, where world leaders endorsed an ambitious new political declaration on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and the promotion of mental health and wellbeing.
Orygen leaders attended the UN in New York, advocating strongly for youth mental health and early intervention and presenting on vital issues from suicide prevention to understanding the relationship between NCDs and mental health.
Professor Patrick McGorry, who spoke at the First Annual Global Summit on Youth Mental Health, said that while mental health was receiving the global attention it deserved at the high-level meeting, awareness alone was not enough.
“What we need now is urgent and large-scale action in order to invest strongly in prevention to tackle harmful megatrends and government social and economic policies and to reform and restructure global mental health systems to strengthen economies and societies,” Professor McGorry said.
“The political declaration agreed by member states at the UN is an important milestone in addressing the global youth mental health crisis, with ambitious targets that require whole-of-government and whole-of society collaboration to reshape our health systems.
“Orygen continues to advocate for early intervention in youth mental health and for tackling the underlying social, economic and environmental drivers of poor mental health globally.
“The Australian Government has created innovative models of youth mental health care to complement the influential social media policy shared by our Prime Minister Anthony Albanese at the UNGA.
“These models of care have been emulated in many of the member states of the UN who have worked in partnership with Australian mental health pioneers."
Orygen leaders at the UN included Chief of Research and Knowledge Translation, Professor Eóin Killackey, Acting Director of Orygen Global Nataya Branjerdporn and Head of Suicide Research and President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, Professor Jo Robinson, who spoke about the importance of partnering for impact.
“For too long suicide prevention has operated in a silo, but we know it is linked to all sorts of other areas of health and policy – including health equity, housing, financial policies and regulatory reform – so we need genuine cross government collaboration,” Professor Robinson said.
“We also need global collaboration – which is critical when we are talking about the role of the tech industry in all this.
“And at the same time we need local partnerships, including with young people and those with lived experience, so we can make sure our efforts actually meet the needs of the people we are trying to help.”
Professor Robinson also spoke about the challenges of creating safe online environments for young people and the need to find ways to capitalise on the benefits social media can offer whilst mitigating the harms.
The Zero Draft Political Declaration released on 25 September acknowledged that mental health conditions affect close to 1 billion people and are a leading cause of disability worldwide. The declaration also stated that mental health conditions are a significant risk to economic growth and security, and prevent people from fulfilling their potential.
The declaration commits to “fast-track progress on noncommunicable diseases and mental health over the next five years,” with a focus on improving mental health care, so that by 2030 150 million more people have access to mental health care.