The biggest threat to Australian suicide rates is the cost of living and financial stress.

New data shows that more than one-third of Australians know someone who has killed themselves or tried to kill themselves in the past year. This is a scary number.

Suicide Prevention Australia did a worrying study and found that 38% of the 1022 adults they talked to had been affected by suicide in some way.

One in five adults said they had thought about suicide in the past year, and 70% said they were in a lot of pain.

The national peak body for suicide prevention did more research and found that the cost of living and personal debt were the most common sources of stress for Australians, while housing-related stress was the one that was growing the fastest.

Nieves Murray, the head of Suicide Prevention Australia, said that the new data showed that "middle age and middle wage" Australians were the most stressed out about housing. She also said that financial problems were the biggest threat to the nation's mental health and suicide rates.

Mr. Murray said, "Our findings show again that there is a clear link between the effects of rising economic and social pressures and the level of distress in the community."

"Research shows that suicide rates can peak two to three years after a crisis. We need to take action right away to deal with the rising number of unhappy people and the risk of more suicides in our community.

Mr. Murray said that over the past year, demand for 88% of the nation's frontline suicide prevention services had gone up.

Several major groups that help people with mental health issues shared these worries.

Beyond Blue's lead clinical adviser, Dr. Grant Blahki, said that a recent survey of 15,000 Australians found a similar link between a person's mental health getting worse and financial stress.

Dr. Blahki said, "What we found was that rising cost of living rates and high interest rates made people feel disconnected from things and added to their stress."

"Even though people aren't as worried about Covid as they used to be, there's a feeling of being worn out. There have been a lot of problems, like the pandemic, disasters, and worries about money.

Dr. Blahki said that people who were worried about money were twice as likely to have mental health problems, but that people who were worried about their mental health were also twice as likely to be worried about money.

"That's what I see as a general practitioner," he said. "If you have a lot of money worries and stress, it's not good for your mental health. People can't sleep, and they feel bad about things."