First major study into the mental health of Australia’s creative industry launched
The first major Australian study into the mental health and wellbeing of creative industry workers has launched as part of a partnership between Never Not Creative, UnLtd and Everymind.
The study will assess the mental health and wellbeing of individuals working in the media, marketing and creative industries, along with their attitudes towards mental health.
The collaboration is an adaptation of research from Everymind, a national institute dedicated to reducing mental ill-health and suicide.
Chris Freel, CEO of UnLtd, said: “Through working with our charity partners such as Batyr, we know what a critical issue mental ill health is. We know one in five Australians experience a mental illness every year but over half of those will not seek help. Sadly, suicide is still the biggest killer of young Australians aged 15-44. We also know from conversations with our corporate partners, that mental health is a topic that people in our industry can relate to and something that affects people across all levels.”
Andy Wright, founder of creative community Never Not Creative, said that while stories of burn-out and stress are common it is well known that the issue is widespread, so far there has been no concrete statistics to quantify the problem.
“This study will bring robust data backed by credible and proven methodologies to start us on the path to identifying solutions,” he added.
The research has been adapted to the media, marketing and creative industries in order to analyse differences and similarities between the mental health of the industry compared with the population and businesses in general.
Dr Ross Tynan, mental health research lead at Everymind commented: “We are excited to better understand the mental health of the media, marketing and creative industry and how that compares to the general public and business sector.
“All of our research focuses on contributing to the evidence base for the prevention of mental ill health, the prevention of suicide and the promotion of overall mental health and wellbeing. The results will be used to guide our work, and the work of others in establishing programs to improve the mental health in the workplace.”
The survey has been launched this week and can be accessed here. Results are expected to be reported by the end of the year.
Wow, that survey was long…
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Worth noting this report from 2015 – some differences perhaps between ‘creative industry’ and ‘entertainment industry’ though mostly cross-over. https://www.entertainmentassist.org.au/our-research/
Also billed as a world-first.
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Congratulations to Unltd for getting this survey up and running.
Took less than 15min and to think about the impact this research could have on individuals and the industry, it was well worth the time.
Hopefully there are some strong insights that can be used to change the conversation and launch some initiatives to really make a difference.
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The way this industry treats its staff and the resulting metal health issues is completely abhorrent. And I would like to point out this is not an issue confined to juniors.
Speaking from a Media Agency perspective we’re fed an ongoing list of promises that never materialise. It would be nice if agencies actually bothered to address what I believe to be the root cause of mental illness: The agreement of contracts with clients that will never be fully staffed and that result in employees becoming ill, overworked and eventually burnt out.
It’s absolutely sickening. May be one day in the future we’ll look back on this time and acknowledge that we’ve not done the right thing by our people and may be feel some guilt about it. But it’s unlikely, because this is advertising.
RIP
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