Comparisons of Australian Mental Health Distributions

TL;DR

This paper uses Bayesian nonparametrics to analyze Australian mental health data, revealing recent deterioration, gender differences, and indigenous disparities in mental health status.

Contribution

It introduces Bayesian nonparametric methods combined with stochastic dominance to compare mental health distributions across subgroups and over time.

Findings

Mental health has worsened in recent years.

Males have better mental health than females.

Non-indigenous populations have better mental health than indigenous groups.

Abstract

Bayesian nonparametric estimates of Australian mental health distributions are obtained to assess how the mental health status of the population has changed over time and to compare the mental health status of female/male and indigenous/non-indigenous population subgroups. First- and second-order stochastic dominance are used to compare distributions, with results presented in terms of the posterior probability of dominance and the posterior probability of no dominance. Our results suggest mental health has deteriorated in recent years, that males mental health status is better than that of females, and non-indigenous health status is better than that of the indigenous population.