Three commissioners work within new Wellbeing SA from 2019 on mental health by disease prevention
The state government's Wellbeing SA agency would emphasis disease prevention and health promotion.
Three mental health commissioners working within the new Wellbeing SA agency were changes to the South Australian government’s approach to mental health from 2019. Wellbeing SA would be responsible for leading the government’s preventative health and health promotion activities.
Within SA Health government department (but separate to hospitals), Wellbeing SA’s role would include reducing mental-health hospital admissions and working in partnerships on better sub-acute and chronic disease management. Much disease was seen as preventable through effective and practice.
The main contributors to disease in Australia were cancer (19%), cardiovascular diseases (15%), mental and substance use disorders (12%), musculoskeletal conditions (12%) and injuries (9%). About a third could be prevented by reducing modifiable risk factors such as tobacco use, high body mass, alcohol use, physical inactivity and high blood pressure. The lowest socioeconomic group experienced 1.5 times the rate of disease when compared with the highest socioeconomic group. Indigenous Australians had s 2.3 times the disease rate of non-Indigenous Australians.
Wellbeing SA was seen as an opportunity to tackle the major contributors to disease in a coordinated and integrated way. In 2019, the state government appointed three part-time commissioners to lead the mental health commission while it was absorbed into Wellbeing SA.
The mental health commissioners appointed were Sharon Lawn, a professor at Flinders University’s college of medicine and public health; Heather Nowak, a mental health advocate and lecturer at TAFE SA; and mental health and wellbeing project manager David Kelly. They replaced Chris Burns, who became chief executive of homelessness service, the Hutt Street Centre, in Adelaide. The commissioners would lead the state’s mental health services plan and mental health strategic plan being introduced.
