ARH was founded by Ian Scott, a member of the Rotary Club of Mornington, Victoria.Henningham, P. (2011). With Health in Mind: The Story of Australian Rotary Health. Parramatta: Australian Rotary Health. In 1981, Scott was so moved by the impact of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) on families that he resolved to set up a fund to support research on this and other family health problems. This resulted in the establishment of the Australian Rotary Health Research Fund (later called ARH) with Royce Abbey as the inaugural chair of the board. The Fund offered its first research grants in 1985. The Fund initially supported research on sudden infant death syndrome, including a project which showed that prone sleeping position of the infant was a major risk factor. An information campaign following this research led to a rapid fall in the deaths from SIDS in Australia.Jorm, A.F., Sawyer, M.G. & Gillett, J. (2011). Celebrating 30 years of Australian Rotary Health. Medical Journal of Australia, 194, 279-280. Subsequently, the Fund supported a number of areas of research, including environmental health problems of the aged, adolescent health and family health. From 2000, it began to specialise in support for mental illness research in recognition of the adverse effects that mental illness had on the health and wellbeing of children, youth and adults in Australia.Jorm, A.F., Sawyer, M.G. & Gillett, J. (2012). Australian Rotary Health: a major contributor to mental illness research and mental health awareness in Australia. Australasian Psychiatry, in press. ARH is currently the largest non-government funder of research in this area in Australia. In 2009, the name was changed from the Australian Rotary Health Research Fund to Australian Rotary Health because the organisation had broadened its scope to include community mental health awareness and education activities, in addition to support for research.
