Download a PDF of the 2012 Annual Report - Black Dog Institute

... the annual work-related costof depression in Australia isestimated to be $12.6 billion...The Black Dog Institute, working togetherwith UNSW, has secured funding from NSW Healthfor a three-year program of research focused on therelationship between work and mental health. Thisresearch program is being led by Dr Samuel Harvey,an academic psychiatrist who has recently returned toAustralia after spending 10 years working in the UK.His post at the Black Dog Institute and UNSW is thefirst clinical academic position in workplace mentalhealth in Australia and one of the very few academicpositions world-wide to focus specifically on the relationshipbetween mental health and work.Initially, the Workplace Mental Health ResearchProgram will focus on the mental health ofNSW emergency workers, but it is hoped that overtime it will expand to consider the entire working agepopulation. Emergency workers have a key role in oursociety, but their work is often stressful and dangerousand significant numbers of emergency workers havedifficulties with mental illness as a result. The aims ofthe new program of research are relatively broad, butinclude trying to establish ways of identifying whichemergency workers are at risk of developing mentalhealth problems, considering ways of increasingworker resilience and preventing mental disorders,and testing new interventions to help promote earlyidentification and return to work amongst unwellemergency workers.BLACK DOG 201233