Multicultural Mental Health and Suicide Prevention

The Background Briefing: Multicultural Mental Health & Suicide Prevention report considers:

• The current culturally and linguistically diverse population profile based on publically available data from the Australian Census of 2016
• An outline of the key historical documents and pieces of work relevant to multicultural mental health and suicide prevention in Australia, and
• The identification of priority work areas, key stakeholders and strategic mechanisms to progress policy and service delivery outcomes in respect of multicultural mental health and suicide prevention.

In 2012, we commissioned the Mental health research and evaluation in multicultural Australia: Developing a culture of inclusion report, which was prepared by Mental Health in Multicultural Australia (MHiMA). This independent report looks at what is known about the mental health of culturally and linguistically diverse communities in Australia; whether our mental health research pays adequate attention to cultural and linguistic diversity; and whether national data collections support evidence informed mental health policy, practice and reform in multicultural Australia. The MHiMA report makes independent recommendations for policy makers, researchers and others.

Since that report, MHiMA released the Framework for Mental Health in Multicultural Australia: Towards culturally inclusive service delivery and the Framework’s Organisational Implementation Guide, Key Outcome Areas.