The National Mental Health Commission (NMHC) and National Suicide Prevention Office (NSPO) have commissioned ISSR to undertake a national project examining how the wider determinants of health influence mental health and suicide outcomes, and to develop an integrated, systems-informed evidence base to guide prevention, policy, and future reform.
Mental health and suicide outcomes are increasingly understood as the result of a complex and dynamic interplay of social, economic, environmental, cultural, commercial, structural, and digital determinants operating across the life course. However, the evidence base on the wider determinants of mental health and suicide remains uneven across domains and is not yet consistently synthesised in a way that supports system‑level interpretation. There is a need to strengthen understanding of how determinants interact, the relative strength of evidence across domains, and the pathways through which these determinants shape mental health and suicide outcomes.
The aim of the project is to develop a comprehensive, systems-informed program of work to guide national mental health and suicide prevention policy, with a focus on wider determinants.
The objectives:
- Develop a whole-of-health conceptual model that integrates physical health, mental health, and suicide prevention outcomes.
- Produce a suite of evidence briefs that examine the strength, gaps, and interactions within and across determinant domains.
- Develop a policy paper that integrates the evidence from the evidence briefs, identifies priority areas for policy reform, and outlines actionable implementation pathways.
Work Package 1
Work Package 1 will develop determinant-specific and whole-of-health conceptual systems maps that articulate how wider determinants interact to influence mental health and suicide outcomes, and to identify shared and determinant-specific mechanisms and intervention points. This will be done iteratively and in conjunction with Work Package 2.
Work Package 2
Work Package 2 provides the substantive evidence base for the project. It translates the conceptual systems structures developed in Work Package 1 into determinant-specific reviews that are both stand-alone policy products and structured inputs into the integrated analysis and Theory of Change developed in Work Package 3.
Work Package 3
Work Package 3 brings together the integrated system model and determinant‑specific evidence to support structured policy interpretation. This includes mapping existing strategy actions against the system, applying a systems‑informed Theory of Change, and identifying implementation pathways, enabling conditions, and monitoring implications to inform coordinated, cross‑portfolio action.
The figure below provides a more detailed overview of the integrated work package approach.
Project lead
A/Prof Mark Robinson (ISSR)
Project manager
Jenny Renda (ISSR)
Work Package 1 lead
Matt Healey (First Person Consulting)
Work Package 4 lead
Dr Charlie Young (ISSR)
Work Package 3 lead
A/Prof Fiona Charlson (ISSR)
Project team
Dr Alex O’Donnell, Dr Yanshu Huang (ISSR)
Madeline Miller (First Person Consulting)
Brittany Wilson (The Sax Institute)
Project delivery support
Danielle Taylor, Julie Dean, Aditi Lohan, Lizzie Kennedy, Gina Nuttall, Lars Eriksson, Deobrah Martin
Subject matter experts
Prof Steve Allender: Systems thinking and behavioural
A/Prof Kathryn Backholer: Digital
A/Prof Katherine Cullerton: Commercial
Prof Sharon Friel: Structural, social, and economic
Dr Kizzy Gandy: Cultural
Prof Kairi Kolves: Mental health and suicide prevention
A/Prof Jon Olsen: Environmental
A/Prof Carmel Williams: Health in all policies