![]() When the COVID crisis struck, Hazarika launched a telephone counselling service with six emergency helplines lent to her by Assam police. ![]() Public resources are scarce and awareness of mental-health problems is low, she says. Tackling the psychological impact of the COVID pandemic in a developing country such as India has been particularly tough, says Mythili Hazarika, a clinical psychologist at Guwahati Medical College in Assam, India. “We have a real opportunity, a natural experiment, in how policies in different countries impact people’s mental health,” says epidemiologist Kathleen Merikangas at the US National Institutes of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. That could help to inform the response in this pandemic and future ones, say researchers. Scientists running large, detailed international studies say that they might eventually be able to show how particular COVID-control measures - such as lockdowns or restrictions on social interaction - reduce or exacerbate mental-health stress, and whether some populations, such as minority ethnic groups, are disproportionately affected by certain policies. “The things that we know predispose people to mental health problems and conditions have been increased as a whole,” says Victor Ugo, a campaign officer who specializes in mental-health policy at United for Global Mental Health, a mental-health advocacy group in London. Data also suggest that young women are more vulnerable than young men, and people with young children, or a previously diagnosed psychiatric disorder, are at particularly high risk for mental-health problems. Studies and surveys conducted so far in the pandemic consistently show that young people, rather than older people, are most vulnerable to increased psychological distress, perhaps because their need for social interactions are stronger. The distress in the pandemic probably stems from people’s limited social interactions, tensions among families in lockdown together and fear of illness, says psychiatrist Marcella Rietschel at the Central Institute for Mental Health in Mannheim, Germany. A study 1 of more than 36,000 New York residents and rescue workers revealed that more than 14 years after the attack, 14% still had post-traumatic stress disorder and 15% experienced depression - much higher rates than in comparable populations (5% and 8%, respectively). Major events that have shaken societies, such as the 9/11 terrorist attack in New York, have left some people with psychological distress for years, says Marques. Source: Office for National Statistics (UK data) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (US data). “I don’t think this is going to go back to baseline anytime soon,” says clinical psychologist Luana Marques, at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts, who is monitoring the mental-health impacts of the crisis in US populations and elsewhere. ![]() Data from other surveys suggest that the picture is similar worldwide (see ‘COVID’s mental stress’). More than 42% of people surveyed by the US Census Bureau in December reported symptoms of anxiety or depression in December, an increase from 11% the previous year. “This is really ambitious science,” he says. ![]() The data that emerge from these studies will be huge, says sociologist James Nazroo at the University of Manchester, UK. Ultimately, scientists hope that they can use the mountains of data being collected in studies about mental health to link the impact of particular control measures to changes in people’s well-being, and to inform the management of future pandemics. Researchers worldwide are investigating the causes and impacts of this stress, and some fear that the deterioration in mental health could linger long after the pandemic has subsided. The devastation of the pandemic - millions of deaths, economic strife and unprecedented curbs on social interaction - has already had a marked effect on people’s mental health. Credit: RenataAphotography/GettyĪs the COVID-19 pandemic enters its second year, new fast-spreading variants have caused a surge in infections in many countries, and renewed lockdowns. Isolation and fear of infection are two factors contribution to a rise in anxiety and depression amid the pandemic.
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