A/Professor Tim Slade – Mental Health Research Grant Recipient

With the increase in mental health illnesses among Australian adolescents aged 13-15 years, ARH Mental Health Grant recipient Tim Slade examines the risk and protective factors associated with mental health and substance use problems. Data from the study demonstrated that mental health problems have increased over time, particularly for females, while alcohol use has decreased over time, particularly for males.

The study involved 14,000 Australian high school students who provided questionnaire data related to mental health and substance use. The dataset contained multiple time points of information from different groups of adolescents, indicating how mental health and substance use differs between adolescents of today versus adolescents 15-20 years ago.

The aim of this project is to build a large dataset, eventually containing data from over 30,000 adolescents, to examine risk and protective factors associated with mental health and substance use problems. This will be done by harmonizing smaller datasets from previous research that have been collected with common methodologies and measurement scales.

As a result, these techniques will be able to help identify students at high risk of these problems, informing the future design and development of targeted prevention interventions.

Media contact: [email protected]       First published 14th August 2024

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