People classified as obese experience 5 to 10 times the risk of developing Type 2 diabetes than people not classified as overweight. This cost includes specialised community mental health services and drug and alcohol residential centres, hospitalisations and pharmaceuticals. Currently the Mental Health NHPA focuses especially on depression . In any given year almost 800,000 Australian adults will experience a depressive illness it is the third most common cause of illness among women and the tenth most common cause among men. It also occurs frequently occurs in combination with other mental illness such as anxiety disorders, and in combination with physical illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer.
Depression is a leading cause of disability in Australia.
It alone accounts for more days lost to the workplace than those lost to industrial action. Another particular concern is the death rates for suicide and self-inflicted injury, which had risen over the 1990s to 23.1 deaths per 100,000 population for males and 5.6 for females in 1998. About twice as many women as men experience depression. Mental health disorders are believed to be more prevalent in rural and remote area residents than those of metropolitan areas, and also among people of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent. Certainly suicide rates, especially among young males, are much higher in these groups than in the general population.