Aust'n mental illness cost tops 150 bln U.S. dollars: report

The annual cost of mental illness in Australia has topped 150 billion U.S. dollars, a report has found.

The annual Herald-Lateral Economics Index of Australia's Wellbeing found that the impact of mental illness on Australia's economy in the last year was 30 billion U.S. dollars more than 10 years ago.

Nicholas Gruen, the index's author and chair of the Australian Center for Social Innovation, said the effect that mental wellbeing has on the economy is underestimated.

"We're not good at dealing with mental illness, and political debate rarely rises above advocacy for more funding - often for professionals," Gruen told Fairfax Media in comments published on Sunday.

"We need to confront our ignorance and build a learning system that systematically experiments to find solutions based on sound evidence that communities can embrace."

The index used traditional measures such as days taken off work due to mental illness as well as diving deeper to put a dollar figure on poor mental wellbeing.

In the financial year ending June 2006, the index found the cost of mental illness to be 120 billion U.S. dollars, but that climbed to 153 billion U.S. dollars in the last financial year.

Australia's rising rate of obesity also had a significant economic impact, with the index reporting that the wellbeing cost of obesity reached 92 billion U.S. dollars in the last financial year.

Despite the climbing cost of mental health, the index found that general wellbeing Australia-wide rose by 2.5 percent in the last quarter of the year due to the rise of Australians aged between 20 and 64 with formal qualifications.

The index said that the post-school qualification rate for that age group was 60 percent, up from 47 percent in 2006. Endit