Key Facts:
A new analysis of 24 years of Australian data found a long-term trend of deteriorating mental health among adolescents and young adults had the steepest decline between 2019 and 2021 – and is only now showing a clear rebound.
The mental health of young Australians has been deteriorating since the mid-2010s, with a sharp drop during the pandemic years. This drop is now starting to recover – but new national data suggests many are still struggling to return to their pre-COVID levels of mental health.
A UNSW Sydney-led analysis across 24 years of Australian household survey data found adolescents experienced the steepest mental health decline between 2019 and 2021, with only a partial recovery by 2024.
Older Australians remained comparatively stable throughout the same period.
Lead author Dr Sergey Alexeev, a Senior Research Associate at Nura Gili: Centre for Indigenous Programs, UNSW Sydney, together with co-author Professor Nick Glozier from the University of Sydney, drew on the long-running Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, which has tracked tens of thousands of Australians annually since 2001. The findings point to a sharp "distinct 2021 low point" concentrated among people under 25.
"Youth mental health in Australia has been falling for years," says Dr Alexeev.
"This is the first clear sign in the data that the trend is turning around."
The study analysed mental health trends across seven age groups using the SF-36 mental health scale – a widely used self-reported measure of psychological wellbeing.
Under-25s fell by about five points on the 100-point scale between 2019 and 2021 – the largest drop of any age group – before regaining roughly two to three points by 2024.
Dr Alexeev says the data revealed both the level of disruption experienced by young people, as well as the limits of the recovery so far.
"Mental health among young Australians in 2024 still remains below where it was before the pandemic," he says.
Trend set pre-pandemic
The results suggest Australia's youth mental health crisis did not begin with COVID-19, but rather that the pandemic intensified already existing trends that emerged in the mid-2010s.
Dr Alexeev says while the study doesn't identify the causes, the mid-2010s onset coincided closely with the mass adoption of smartphones and social media among adolescents, "which is the leading candidate explanation in the international literature".
"Other plausible factors include rising housing and cost-of-living pressures, climate anxiety and intensifying academic competition."
He says what the data does make clear is that the longer-term decline predates COVID, so any explanation must predate the pandemic, too.
"The good news is that young Australians have started to recover from the 2021 low point," Dr Alexeev says.
"The sobering news is that they have not yet returned to where they were in 2019."
The analysis found older Australians experienced comparatively little change throughout the same period, reinforcing what Dr Alexeev says is an increasingly "age-divergent" mental health trend.
"What stands out is how concentrated the pandemic-era decline was among adolescents and young adults compared with older age groups," he says.
"Adolescents and young adults saw the sharpest drop – and now the clearest rebound –while older age groups were comparatively stable."
The scores ranged from 0 to 100, where a higher score meant better mental health, across seven age groups from 2001 to 2024.
Within the under-25 group, the recovery has been uneven. Teenagers aged 15 to 18 fell sharply between 2019 and 2021 and have so far recovered only about a third of what they lost.
Young adults aged 19 to 24 dropped by a similar amount but have rebounded roughly twice as fast, recovering close to two-thirds of their decline.
Neither group has returned to pre-pandemic levels.
The research also examined whether recovery between 2021 and 2024 differed depending on socio-economic advantage.
While young people living in wealthier areas generally reported slightly higher mental health scores overall, the pace of improvement appeared similar across communities.
"This suggests the post-2021 improvement was broad-based rather than confined to more socio-economically advantaged youth," Dr Alexeev says.
Gendered differences
The study also identified a substantial gender gap.
Across all models, young women reported significantly lower mental health scores than young men – by about 6.4 to 6.6 points.
Researchers caution the study is descriptive rather than diagnostic – and relied on self-reported symptoms, not clinical mental illness diagnoses.
"These results do not tell us what caused the decline or the rebound," Dr Alexeev says.
"Still, they tell us where the largest changes have occurred and this provides an important benchmark for governments and health services planning future support for young Australians," he says.
Dr Alexeev says the findings have direct implications for service delivery and policy, with under-25s, and particularly young women, the clear priority for sustained investment.
"The data tell us where services need to be focused," he says.
"Under-25s, and especially young women, carry most of the burden of recent change. Generic mental health investment that is not directed at these groups will miss where the action actually is."
He says the flip side of the rebound is that something is helping.
"Whether that is the easing of pandemic disruption, expanded youth services, schools returning to normal, or some combination, something is lifting young Australians back up," Dr Alexeev says.
"Working out what is helping and protecting it is now as important as understanding what went wrong in 2020 and 2021," he says.
He says after years of worsening headlines around youth mental health, there are "finally signs of movement in the right direction for young Australians – but this is not a story of full recovery, yet.
"The challenge now is understanding what is helping, what risks remain and how to make sure this improvement continues."
