Alumni profile: Hiroko Fujimoto
Discover Hiroko's insights and experiences from our programs. Published on the 16 August 2024 by Alex Speed
Investigating adolescent mental health: how Hiroko began a research career from the Master of Public Health
Hiroko Fujimoto knows all about the importance of living life on her own terms, and that freedom of choice and connectedness to others, are integral to young peoples’ mental and physical health.
Hiroko, a policy research officer at the Black Dog Institute,is analumna of UNSW’s School of Population Health. She completed her Masters of Public Healthin 2023. As part of her Masters, Hiroko conducted a research project investigating the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of adolescents. Her findings became the basis for a co-authored paper entitled:“What aspects of the pandemic had the greatest impact on adolescent mental health: duration of lockdown or subjective experience?” She completed this paperwith supervisors,AssociateProfessor Anita Heywood from UNSW’s School of Public Health and Professor Phillip BatterhamfromAustralian National University’s Centre of Mental Health Research,as well as other academics at the Black Dog Institute.
Hiroko saysshe was thrilledin Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health Journal.
The research found that longer lockdowns were not associated with a longer-term deterioration in mental health among Australian adolescents. It revealed, however, that adolescents who reportednegative experience of the pandemic on their learning and social connectionshad greater mental health symptoms a year after the lockdowns were lifted, compared to those who reported that the pandemic positively affected or did not affect their learning and social connections.
Hiroko says, “this is significant because it indicates that, toprotect young people’s mental health in future public health emergencies requiring lockdowns, it is vital to provide themwithequitable access to essential resources for engaging with online learning,andforbuilding and maintaining social connections.”
Hiroko moved to Australia in 2013from her hometownTokyo,Japan as a20year old.She hadbeenstudyingInternationalRelations ata universityinTokyo for a year but found it wasn’t for her. Unsure of her path forward, Hirokotook the advice of herEnglish teacherwhosuggested she visit Sydney to improve her understanding of the English language and Australian culture.
“I came to Sydney for a short period of timeduring my university summer holidays, and I found I reallyliked being here,and thedifferentways thatpeople interacted,” explains Hiroko.
“Also,I was really bored at university in Japan. Peoplein Japanstudy hardto get into a university, butvery few seem toget excited about learning.I found people here were keen to share ideas and learn new things,and that inspired me to move to Australia.”
For her first two years in Sydney, as she refined her English, Hiroko mulled overthedirection she wanted totakeprofessionally.
“After I moved toAustralia, my English wasn’t good enough to go straight touniversity,so Ispenta couple of years learning Englishand completing a bridging course,but also thinking through what I wanted to do. Myparentswho havealways been incredibly supportive of my choices werehelping support me financially and Ihad a part time job tutoring Japanese.”
Hiroko says the freedom she found in Sydney, coupled with new friendships and experiences, helped her decideto enrol in,and complete,a three-year Bachelor of Health Sciences degree at The University of Sydney.
“ThemainreasonI chose Health Sciences – andit soundsa bitweird to saythis - but whenImovedaway frommy homeand startedlivingindependently,Ihada lot of freedom and options on howtostructuremylife in terms of diet, exercise and various activities. With the new life I established,I was feelingbetter andhealthier,” says Hiroko.
“This personal experience and process of engaging with health and lifestyle choices made me interested in learning more about it. I chose psychology as a major asI becameparticularlyfascinatedwithlearning abouthow mental health is integral to individuals’ health and wellbeing.”
This interest is also what led Hiroko to the Black Dog Institute where, in 2018, she began working on the Future Proofing Study, the institute’s flagship study of adolescent mental health.
The Future Proofing Study has been collecting comprehensive mental healthdata from more than 6,000 adolescentsevery year since 2019.
Hiroko thenstartedherMasters of Public Health at UNSW in the middle of lockdown in June 2021.
“My Master’s project used data from the Future Proofing Study andaimedto address research gapsthat existed aboutadolescents and the pandemic lockdown. Specifically, Iinvestigated both objectively and subjectively measured impacts of the pandemic restrictions on adolescents’ wellbeing,internalising symptoms(i.e., symptoms related to emotional and relational difficulties such as depression and anxiety), and externalising symptoms(i.e., symptoms related to behavioural difficulties e.g., hyperactivity and conduct problems)in the short- and longer-term,” says Hiroko.
Hiroko’s study analysed data from 1,000 adolescentswho lived through the lockdowns in NSW and Victoria, some of the longest in the world.Counter to public concern about the toll of prolonged lockdowns on mental health, the studyfound that the amount of time that adolescents spent in lockdown was not associated with higher levels ofinternalising symptoms, and externalising symptoms; rathertheir negative experience of the pandemic related specifically to social connection and learning.These findings highlight the importance of young people’s subjective experiences of pandemic restrictions in relation to their mental health.
“Theoverarchingaimof the study,”says Hiroko,“was to understand both risk and the protective factors associated with adolescents’mental healthto help future proof our young peoplefromimpending pandemics.
Hiroko recently moved to the policy research teamatthe Black Dog Institute where she hopes to help move the needle on getting Australian mental health policy and practice formulated, based on research evidence.
“I likeworking inresearchbecausewe are trying to make sense of the world scientificallyandto translate findings into real world changes.
“When I was visiting schools and meeting students and teachers, as part of my work on the Future Proofing Study,I learnt there is a lot of inequity in health, wellbeing andmore broadlyintheAustralian educationsystem. Those fundamentalissues need to be addressed to improve adolescent mental healthat the population level.”
Hiroko says thenext stepforthisstudyis towidely communicate the findings toensurethatthey can be part of an evidence-base in forming public health policy and, advocating for integrating mental health carefor the next pandemicand public health emergencies.
“We should learn from what we went through and actually apply that learning to makethingsbetter for the future especially for our young people,” says Hiroko.