This study statistically analyses the location and distribution of some
aspects of mental health in Queensland. The health status measured here is
not the conventional ‘count’ approach, i.e. counting people diagnosed
with/without illness, but rather an approach that was developed in the
context of mortality, by Silber and subsequently Le Grand. The present
context is morbidity. We measure the years lived free of serious mental
illness, for people who subsequently contract these illnesses. A complete
enumeration dataset (i.e. not a sample), namely, the Queensland hospital
admissions dataset commencing in 1964, is available. Specific illness
codings are for conditions so consistently serious that hospital admission
invariably occurred throughout the 40-year period. The present study is
partial, but has two major advantages. First, the measure incorporates the
notion that the later in life is the onset of serious mental illness, the better.
Second, although age distribution measurement is not possible with ‘count’
data, it is possible with this approach. Inequality measures, such as the
Gini coefficient, are applied to measure the inequality in the distribution.
Time series on mental health and mental health inequality, for males and
females, are thus generated and statistically analysed.