Work and unemployment: vital to effective suicide prevention

Stretton Health Equity and Critical and Ethical Mental Health are collaborative research groups within the University of Adelaide. 

We have been funded by the NHMRC’s Medical Research Future Fund (MRFF) to investigate the relationship between employment factors (including unemployment) and suicide. Social factors such as work impact on physical and mental wellbeing and can cause significant distress in people’s lives. 

CEMH are focusing on how to identify and address employment-related factors in general practice as an approach to suicide prevention.

A review of literature on insecure employment and suicide

Dr Miriam van den Berg (Stretton Health Equity) is leading a systematic review of international academic literature characterising the impact of insecure employment on suicide.

Inequities in suicide and employment status

Stretton Health Equity and Critical and Ethical Mental Health are collaborating on an analysis of data from the National Coronial Information System (NCIS) to characterise the relationship in employment status and completed suicides over the past decade. 

The language of mental health

Understanding and addressing the social determinants of health (SDH) is widely accepted as critical to sustainably improving health outcomes for people in the Northern Adelaide region, South Australia’s most socially-disadvantaged, high-risk population. Current national pregnancy care guidelines highlight the importance of SDH screening during pregnancy, yet clinicians meeting with pregnant women or infants may not understand how to adequately assess, or know how best to respond to family and social circumstances (e.g., family violence, food/housing insecurity, unemployment).

This project aims to enhance psychosocial care provided during the perinatal period by training clinicians to better manage SDH. Our team has unique skills in developing such training packages informed by psychiatric, linguistic and pedagogic experience and expertise. Our overarching goal is to improve the long-term health trajectories for both children and parents through reducing adverse experiences for parent and infant during the perinatal period.