HMN 2025: How Poor psychological well being is ‘new regular’ for half of Australian girls, in keeping with report

A brand new report exhibiting excessive ranges of melancholy (52%), nervousness (44%), physique picture points (39%) and insomnia (30%) has prompted a name from public well being advocates and researchers for extra gender-targeted companies to set a greater customary of psychological well being look after Australian girls.

Spanning 4 years of information gathered by Australia’s solely non-profit group solely devoted to advancing girls’s psychological well being, the Liptember Foundation, the report, titled “Beyond the Surface: Investigating the Mental Health Realities for Australian Women in 2025,” reveals low vanity (50%), monetary pressures (45%), low self-worth (42%) and sleep deprivation (40%) are the main triggers for these psychological well being issues in girls aged 18 to 70.

Nielsen surveyed a nationally consultant pattern of greater than 7,000 Australian girls in March 2025 to know the gender-specific psychological well being points at present confronted by Australian girls. This 12 months’s analysis study is a collaboration with the Center for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine, based by The George Institute for Global Health to embed intercourse and gender issues into medical training, analysis and coverage.

The annual study, now in its fourth 12 months, exhibits no discount within the giant numbers of ladies battling poor psychological well being—1 in 2 Australian girls proceed to {experience} psychological well being points in 2025, and nearly 1 in 4 have a extreme {condition}. In some areas, akin to physique picture concern in younger girls, charges of misery are growing alarmingly.

“Our newest report exhibits that throughout all ages and circumstances, poor psychological well being is severely limiting girls’s means to take part absolutely of their lives. They are being stretched too skinny, and the worth is their psychological well being,” mentioned Katrina Locandro, Research Lead, Liptember Foundation.

“Women’s psychological well being just isn’t a distinct segment concern—it must be a nationwide precedence. With no materials change within the numbers—and charges creeping up in most areas—many ladies are being failed by a system that was by no means designed with their wants in thoughts,” she mentioned.

The Liptember Foundation is urging the Australian Government to enhance girls’s psychological well being by gender-responsive care, improved coaching for well being care professionals, extra inexpensive assist, and by integrating psychological well being into girls’s basic well being companies.

“It’s clear that psychological well being companies should be reshaped in actual and sensible methods to reply to girls’s wants, together with physiological variations and variations throughout life phases. We are calling for sensible, achievable reforms that can ship higher psychological well being outcomes for girls,” mentioned Locandro.

Clinical psychologist Professor Bronwyn Graham, Director of the Center for Sex and Gender Equity in Health and Medicine at The George Institute, Professor of Psychology at UNSW Sydney, and psychological well being advisor to the Lipember Foundation, is a co-author of the report.

“Much of ladies’s burden, akin to caring for others, juggling work and residential duties, and struggling to fulfill unattainable magnificence requirements, are invisible however they nonetheless have a big impression on their psychological well-being,” defined Prof Graham. “Women additionally typically put themselves final, so after they lastly do search assist, it is vital they do not hit limitations that delay therapy or deter them from getting the assist they want.”

Despite elevated consciousness and public dialog round psychological well being, a big variety of girls surveyed (43%) don’t search assist on account of stigma, uncertainty about where to go, caring duties, time constraints or out-of-pocket prices to see a psychologist.

“There is a harmful assumption amongst determination makers that techniques in place are working nice for girls, after they’re clearly not,” mentioned Prof Graham. “Both present companies and future initiatives want to think about psychological well being by a gendered lens—incorporating girls’s biology, together with the crucial function of hormones, in addition to internalized conditioning and societal expectations positioned on girls at present.

“The Liptember Foundation’s analysis findings are deeply regarding as a result of it exhibits Australian girls are placing up with poor high quality of life. But they deserve higher—and households, communities and the broader economic system profit when girls are pleased, wholesome and productive.”

Key coverage suggestions

The Liptember Foundation is placing ahead a collection of gender-responsive coverage measures to the Australian Government to shift the dial on girls’s psychological well being. These embody gender-targeted psychological assist inside well being companies akin to endometriosis clinics; tailor-made psychological well being care provisions throughout puberty, being pregnant, motherhood and menopause; and constructing psychological well being issues into all new insurance policies and companies created for girls’s sexual and reproductive well being.

Additionally, the Foundation is asking for: extra coaching, training and consciousness for well being care professionals by updating medical and allied well being curricula and persevering with skilled improvement to incorporate intercourse and gender-responsive approaches that combine psychological well being with bodily well being; a brand new nationwide psychological well being screening program for expectant moms; and nationwide scientific tips for menopause care together with addressing nervousness and melancholy linked to perimenopause.

To improve affordability and accessibility to psychological well being assist, the Foundation proposes: a completely bulk-billed nationwide telehealth service; restoration of x20 Medicare-funded psychological well being periods per 12 months; and standardized nationwide tips for counselors and peer staff to permit their inclusion in Medicare Benefits Schedule.

“We created The Liptember Foundation as a result of we acknowledged there was no group solely targeted on the massive image of ladies’s psychological well being in Australia and to offer a voice for girls residing with poor psychological well being in coverage discussions. Our annual analysis highlights key traits and patterns that may inform higher coverage and enhance gender-targeted companies on the bottom,” mentioned Founder and CEO, Luke Morris.

“Now is the time for the federal government to construct on its current work in girls’s bodily well being by integrating focused, individualized psychological well being assist, appropriately knowledgeable by and developed with the varied girls impacted, that can correctly serve the true wants of Australian girls at present. We’re trying ahead to speaking to Health Ministers about these urgent points.”

Key findings of the report

• 1 in 2 Australian girls proceed to {experience} psychological well being points in 2025, with nearly 1 in 4 battling a extreme concern—a persistent fee since 2022
• Women with female-specific bodily well being situations like polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) or endometriosis are experiencing considerably larger ranges of psychological misery than these with non-female particular well being or no bodily well being situations
• More than 1 in 3 (37%) girls experiencing menopause or perimenopause are struggling with perimenopausal melancholy or nervousness in 2025
• Over 1 in 7 (14%) girls with psychological well being points report having attention-deficit/hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD)
• There are stark will increase within the prevalence of physique picture points (64% in 2025 vs. 48% in 2024) and suicide/self-harm (25% in 2025 vs. 16% in 2024) in women aged 14–19
• 24% of Indigenous girls experiencing psychological well being points are reporting PTSD; the next fee than non-Indigenous girls with psychological well being points 18%

The high 5 most prevalent psychological well being points amongst Australian girls surveyed in 2025:

1. Depression (52%)
2. Anxiety and generalized nervousness issues (GAD) (44%)
3. Body picture points (39%)
4. Insomnia or different sleep-wake issues (30%)
5. Illness nervousness dysfunction (or well being nervousness) (20%)

Top 5 triggers underlying girls’s psychological well being points in 2025:

1. Low vanity or confidence (50%)
2. Financial stress/pressures (45%)
3. Low self-worth (42%)
4. Sleep deprivation or sleep disturbance (40%)
5. Pressure from by being too arduous on personal self (40%)

Top three limitations to accessing assist:

• 37% of ladies consider they may handle their psychological well being on their very own
• 36% (greater than 1 in 3) could not afford assist or thought of it too pricey
• 35% of ladies did not contemplate their psychological well being points as critical sufficient to warrant looking for assist