World Mental Health Month: what your support makes possible
This World Mental Health Month, we'd like to highlight updates of the research we're currently helping to fund, and the support that makes it possible.
One in five Australians experienced mental ill-health in the past 12 months, an estimated 4.3 million people. Not a number. It could be our families, our friends, or our colleagues. At One in Five, we believe research is the most useful kind of hope.
That hope is powered by people. This year's Extremely Long Lunch, held on 3 October in the Olympic Room at the MCG, raised over $100,000 for medical research into mental illness.
So what does fundraising like this make possible? At the lunch, our keynote speaker, Professor Jayashri Kulkarni AM, Professor of Psychiatry at Monash University and Director of HER Centre Australia, shared updates on the research One in Five is helping to fund across three areas: eating disorders, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression in midlife women.
New hope for recovery from eating disorders.
Professor Jayashri's team is running new clinical trials that repurpose existing medications to target the brain biology involved in eating disorders. In her speech, she shared that just days before the lunch, the team heard from the mother of a 17-year-old who is now doing well after four years of severe anorexia nervosa. Her daughter had taken part in one of the trials.
"Yes, that's one person but we have many stories like that because it is about doing things differently," Professor Kulkarni said.
A new way forward for people living with trauma.
Complex PTSD can follow people who grew up in violent homes, and it changes the brain. The team is working on how to treat the brain circuits and chemicals that have been altered, and a new treatment is almost ready to share. For people who have carried trauma since childhood, that could mean care designed for what they are actually living with.
"I'm delighted to say that we're very close to publishing results in a big journal of a new treatment that we'll be launching into this field. Couldn't have done that without One in Five helping us all the way." - Professor Jayashri Kulkarni AM
Helping clinicians get it right for women in midlife.
Depression in midlife women can be misunderstood, and sometimes misdiagnosed. Professor Kulkarni shared that "we've managed to develop a new treatment," and her team is now "running workshops to try to educate some of the clinicians" so they can recognise this kind of depression and treat it with confidence.
Getting this treatment into everyday care is within reach. As she put it: "It's not that impossible, but again the studies are being funded by philanthropy."
Why your support matters.
Every update here has one thing in common. It started with someone choosing to give.
Only a small share of health funding goes to mental health, and even less to research. That's where philanthropy comes in. When people come together at events like the Extremely Long Lunch, the money raised goes towards research like this: new clinical trials, new treatments, and the work that gets them into the hands of clinicians.
Professor Kulkarni closed her speech with a message about philanthropy:
"Philanthropy provides us with the hope which is about the resilience, the intellect and the community compassion to move mental illness forward."Professor Jayashri Kulkarni AM
And to the people who give, she said simply: "You are the hope for the future."
Since 2003, One in Five has funded medical research into mental illness, with one vision: none in five. Thank you to everyone who came, bid and gave at this year’s lunch. And this World Mental Health Month, we’re launching the One in Five newsletter.
It’s the best way to stay connected to the research make possible by our supporters, with updates from our researchers, stories from our community, and ways to get involved.
If you or someone you know needs support now, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit our Find Help page. One in Five funds research and does not provide support services.
To the one in five, and the four in five who love them, thank you for being here.
