The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s (AIHW) Australia’s Health 2026 report released last week paints an alarming picture of the escalating mental health crisis being faced by young Aussies.

Mental disorders among young people aged 16-24 have increased dramatically, jumping from 26% in 2007 to a staggering 39% in 2020-2022, a sharp increase against a broader population rate that has stayed relatively stable at around 22%.

Suicide and self-inflicted injuries are now the leading cause of disease burden for young men (aged 15-44), while anxiety and depressive disorders are the leading causes for females in the same bracket.

Young people are the group most likely to access Medicare subsidised mental health services, with young women accessing support at twice the rate of young men

Locally, according to the ACT’s Capital Health Network (ACT PHN) 2024 – 2027 Health Needs Assessment Report, the demand for mental health services for Canberra’s young people is equally alarming with 35.1% of those aged 18-24 reporting a mental condition.

The highest of all age groups, with nearly one in three (32.3%) adults aged 18–24 experiencing high levels of psychological distress; Canberrans aged 0–24 accounting for nearly half (44.8%) of all intentional self-harm hospitalisations in the ACT, with females in this age group making up over a third (34.2%) of the total; over a quarter (26.7%) of all mental health-related presentations to ACT emergency departments involving young people aged 15–24; and young LGBTQA+ people in the ACT facing exceptionally high mental health challenges, with 80.4% indicating they experience high or very high levels of psychological distress.

The new data speaks directly to the work of the Youth Mental Health and Technology team at the University of Sydney’s Brain and Mind Centre.

Professor Ian Hickie, Co-Director of Health and Policy at Brain and Mind Centre, says the findings reflect a much broader issue.

“Today’s data shows that we’re seeing a structural crisis in youth mental health, with young people carrying a disproportionate and growing share of the burden,” he says.

“With 29 per cent of young Australians experiencing mental health disorders, it’s a question of whether our traditional models are failing to keep pace with the scale of the need.

 “And a system that was built decades ago wasn’t designed for numbers like this.”

Professor Hickie says that the Albanese Government’s commitment to expanding Headspace clinics to over 200 is welcome.

However, given the way young people communicate and use technology, technology driven interventions, like digital and AI-based mental health tools, can be part of the solution.

“If it’s designed with them, if it’s effective, then it has the potential to be there when people really need it and to make a huge difference … to commence the journey into more complex care,” Professor Hickie says.

For those who might argue that more needs to be done about prevention, rather than more solutions, Professor Hickie says that both are important, and that physical places for mental health treatment services have in no way kept pace with the ongoing construction and expansion of physical health services.

“People have this geographical sense, that we have to have a shopfront everywhere where in truth … that isn’t the way that most young people necessarily relate to a whole lot of service provision and access to care,” he says.

“And it also has huge workforce problems and tends to have a rather 9-to-5 Monday-to-Friday sense of delivery.”

Professor Hickie notes that people of any age are often looking for help in the middle of the night or on weekends when they’re isolated and not necessarily willing to come forward immediately to face-to-face clinic.

He also argues that delays in people accessing an immediate response when they are in crisis, particularly those in regional areas, remain a significant challenge.

“So, we have got to have ways that overcome these geographical, economic and social barriers in ways that traditional services have not succeeded,” he says.

Is Professor Hickie suggesting that AI can replace the skills and intervention of human clinicians? No.

“These things are excellent in tone, engagement and listening which is very therapeutic …but the extent to which they change behaviour as a consequence and deliver real outcomes is not the same,” he says.

 “What real therapists do is not simply accept everything.

“They challenge certain things and provide a safe environment in which to challenge confront and learn.”

Returning to the other side of the balance between prevention and treatment, whilst Professor Hickie notes that since the existence of human beings, there has always been adversity, he stresses that it’s our capacity to respond as individuals and society, that makes a huge difference.

The erosion of social cohesion as a protective factor, is at the top of his list.

“Whatever all the other pressures are, … we live in situations where children live in smaller groups in a more disconnected society,” he says.

“I’m of the view that it’s the lack of the cohesive support and transgenerational structures that leave young people most on their own and most at risk.”

“If society is cohesive and supportive, the mental health of young people tends to remain okay.”

The solutions?

1. Acknowledge the severity of the problem and act. “People are dying without access to immediate support and pathways to care.”
2. Use the technology with appropriate development and safeguards. “In my view, technology is the best thing that’s happened in mental health in the last 20 years.”
3. Expose our young people to more human interaction. “What do we do to make sure they are part of a local basketball club or local footing club or local church or local community group?”

Above all, says Professor Hickie, we need to talk to people, and create opportunities for our kids to talk to people.

“The more we do something, the less anxious we are going to be about it,” he says.