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Mental Health vs. Cancer: What are the Differences?

What do mental health sufferers and cancer sufferers have in common? Which is the faster killer: mental illness or cancer?

In part three of this series, we learnt that mental health affects young people too. We will now look at the differences between cancer sufferers and mental health sufferers.

Cancer is the Leading Cause of Death in Australia

43, 000 people are predicted to pass away in 2010 from cancer. This is a huge amount of people! It is believed that over 50% of men and 35% of women will suffer from some form of cancer in their lifetime.

The Three Most Common Forms of Cancer

What are the most common forms of cancer?

• Melanoma – This is a type of skin cancer that kills 1250 people in Australia every year.
• Bowel cancer – Over 4160 people die from bowel cancer every year. It is the third most diagnosed form of cancer within Australia.
• Lung cancer – This type of cancer accounts for 9% of all cancers and 9% of all cancer deaths within Australia

Mental Illness Affects Gen Y More than Cancer

So you may be wondering what all these statistics have to do with mental health. Well, mental illness affects approximately 25% of Gen Y, but cancer only affects 8% of Gen Y. Mental health is a very real and serious problem for today’s youth.

In Conclusion

We’ve now come to the end of our series. Do you remember the question we asked at the beginning of this series? “Why should I care about mental health? It won’t ever affect me.” Do you still feel this way? How has this series changed your opinion of mental health?

Please share your views and opinions of mental health in the comments below, and please give feedback on this series. Here are some questions to get you started:

• What has this series taught you about mental health? And how has it changed your opinion of mental health?
• What were some of the things you liked or disliked about this series? How would you improve it?
• What would you have liked to see in this series but didn’t?
• What future series would you like to see on this site?

Read through the previous parts of this series if you haven’t already, and leave your comments and opinions on those entries too. We hope you enjoyed this series and learnt more about mental health.

- Amy Cheng
- Researched by: Lillian Chen, Janet Tse, and Taren Foster

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This article is the fourth and final part of a series called Why You Should Care About Mental Health in Australia. Read part one, part two, or part three if you haven’t already. Please leave a comment below and give us feedback on this series.