title: Preventing mental illness: closing the evidence-practice gap through workforce and services planning.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Mental illness is prevalent across the globe and affects multiple aspects of life. Despite advances in treatment, there is little evidence that prevalence rates of mental illness are falling. While the prevention of cardiovascular disease and cancers are common in the policy dialogue and in service delivery, the prevention of mental illness remains a neglected area. There is accumulating evidence that mental illness is at least partially preventable, with increasing recognition that its antecedents are often found in infancy, childhood, adolescence and youth, creating multiple opportunities into young adulthood for prevention. Developing valid and reproducible methods for translating the evidence base in mental illness prevention into actionable policy recommendations is a crucial step in taking the prevention agenda forward.
  
  
  METHODS
  Building on an aetiological model of adult mental illness that emphasizes the importance of intervening during infancy, childhood, adolescence and youth, we adapted a workforce and service planning framework, originally applied to diabetes care, to the analysis of the workforce and service structures required for best-practice prevention of mental illness.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The resulting framework consists of 6 steps that include identifying priority risk factors, profiling the population in terms of these risk factors to identify at-risk groups, matching these at-risk groups to best-practice interventions, translation of these interventions to competencies, translation of competencies to workforce and service estimates, and finally, exploring the policy implications of these workforce and services estimates. The framework outlines the specific tasks involved in translating the evidence-base in prevention, to clearly actionable workforce, service delivery and funding recommendations.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The framework describes the means to deliver mental illness prevention that the literature indicates is achievable, and is the basis of an ongoing project to model the workforce and service structures required for mental illness prevention.
authors.affiliation: Health Economics and Social Policy Group, School of Population Health, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Gareth.furber@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Gareth
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Furber
authors.affiliation: Health Economics and Social Policy Group, School of Population Health, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Leonie.segal@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Leonie
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Segal
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Sansom Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. matthew.leach@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Leach
authors.affiliation: Department for Health and Ageing, South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Catherine.turnbull@health.sa.gov.au.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Turnbull
authors.affiliation: School of Nursing and Midwifery, Sansom Institute, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia. Nicholas.procter@unisa.edu.au.
authors.forename: Nicholas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Procter
authors.affiliation: Australian Regional and Remote Community Services Ltd, Adelaide, Australia. mark@diamondconsult.com.au.
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Diamond
authors.affiliation: Survivors of Torture and Trauma Assistance and Rehabilitation Services, Adelaide, Australia. stephanie@sttars.org.au.
authors.forename: Stephanie
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Miller
authors.affiliation: Orygen Youth Health Research Centre, Centre for Youth Mental Health, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. pat.mcgorry@orygen.org.au.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: McGorry
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D055317:Evidence-Based Practice; D005260:Female; D006285:Health Planning; D006280:Health Workforce; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000517:prevention & control*; D012307:Risk Factors