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FUTURE OPPORTUNITIES

Results from analysis of the Mental Health Services-Census-Mortality Integrated Dataset provide new insights into mortality amongst persons who accessed MBS subsidised mental health-related services and PBS subsidised mental health-related medications in Australia and will assist in informing mental health policy and programs.

A number of potential enhancements were identified during the course of the project. Implementation of the following options would improve understanding of the existing data and create opportunities for a wider scope of analysis, further maximising the value of existing public sector data for policy analysis, research, and statistical purposes:

• Given the wider scope of Australia's mental health system than MBS subsidised mental health-related services and PBS subsidised mental health-related prescription medications, the potential inclusion of other sources of data beyond those recorded on the MBS and PBS, such as information on state and territory mental health-related services, would assist in providing a more complete picture of the provision of mental health-related services in Australia
• The inclusion in the dataset of a greater breadth of treatments listed on the MBS and PBS would facilitate greater understanding of the relationships between co-existing physical and mental health conditions
• The inclusion of more years of information from the source datasets (MBS, PBS and death registrations) would allow for longitudinal analysis as well as more cross-sectional analyses over time, while providing more detailed and reliable information on sequences and histories of treatments over a longer period. This would also address data quality issues associated with the existing dataset such as the potentially incomplete treatment histories for some people whose deaths occurred later in 2011-12 (and who may have accessed mental health-related treatments in 2012 which were not in scope of the existing dataset)
• The addition of data from population surveys (for example, the ABS National Health Survey) would provide information on whether a person has been diagnosed with a mental health condition (and physical health conditions) as well as provide information on associated topics of relevance such as behavioural risk factors (e.g. smoking status).