The Youth Mental Health and Technology team at the University of Sydney's Brain and Mind Centre says this year's World Mental Health Day theme is a timely one for Australia as it faces increasingly regular and intensive natural disasters.
The focus of World Mental Health Day 2025 is mental health in humanitarian emergencies, including natural disasters.
Professor Ian Hickie who heads up the Brain and Mind Centre's Youth Mental Health and Technology team warned the current approach to mental health care in natural disasters needed much greater attention, especially in relation to longer-term care.
He says smart digital solutions, including AI tools, would be key to not only relieving demand on traditional face-to-face services, but also keeping programs accountable for the care they provide to ensure they're having an impact.
"We know weather events such as bushfires and floods can have devastating effects on human health, including on our mental health. How we respond, and continue to support those communities in an ongoing way, is critical," Ian Hickie said.
"Just after disaster strikes, government agencies like Centrelink often do a good job, bringing in multidisciplinary teams, to try to re-establish connections to services and to benefits for affected communities. However, after a certain period these teams leave. People needing ongoing care, especially mental health care, are often left vulnerable. And then we typically don't monitor their ongoing health and welfare.
"Things can deteriorate quickly, increasing the burden on these already affected communities and increasing the cost of disaster to the economy overall. It's inefficient and potentially leaves our most vulnerable to suffer because they aren't getting the help when and where it's most needed.
"Using digital tools to help determine what areas need support, combined with developing artificial intelligence tools to help improve our care by helping identify problems early so interventions can be effective will be key to managing mental health, not just during and after natural disasters, but across the broader population," Ian Hickie said.
Professor Ian Hickie said those digital tools could include real-time monitoring of community wellbeing, such as digital check-in tools, mental health outcome trackers, and secure telehealth systems which can help services rapidly identify and respond to individuals and areas under distress. Meanwhile, AI-enabled triage systems and digital navigation tools can help connect people to appropriate and real-time care even when physical access is disrupted.
The Brain and Mind Centre's Youth Mental Health and Technology team has been pushing for measurement-based care models which force governments and providers to be accountable for the services they provide and the outcomes they deliver, and to work with communities to determine what they need.
"Support services are critical after floods, fires, storms or during and after droughts. But setting up a short-term service that isn't improving peoples' lives is not good for communities trying to recover.
"And we know communities that band together and support each other are more likely to be better off longer term. So listening to those communities about what they need on the ground is also going to be critical to improve natural disaster related mental health issues in Australia.
"What one flood-affected community needs might be very different to what a bushfire-ravaged town might require. There is no one-size fits all solution for every town, and if we want a cutting edge mental health response to humanitarian emergencies, we need our systems to reflect that. Currently, they do not," Ian Hickie said.
