Mental Health and COVID-19

The mental health impact of COVID-19 is dire among health care workers who are providing care to COVID patients, and among a wide range of other essential front line workers who are providing services such as grocery store employees, transportation and pharmacy workers, and first responders. Unfortunately, the United States does not have the capacity to meet this sudden need for mental health services after decades of failing to provide adequate funding for state mental health systems.

The mental health impact of COVID-19 is dire among health care workers who are providing care to COVID patients, and among a wide range of other essential front line workers who are providing services such as grocery store employees, transportation and pharmacy workers, and first responders. Unfortunately, the United States does not have the capacity to meet this sudden need for mental health services after decades of failing to provide adequate funding for state mental health systems.

States are already unable to meet even a fraction of their needs for mental health care under normal circumstances. This site will collect information on the mental health dimension of the COVID-19 crisis and tie it to previous work conducted by Claude Pepper Center staff on the history and current status of the country’s grievously underdeveloped mental health care capacities through staff commentaries.

Important Links

• Covid linked to risk of mental illness and brain disorder, study suggests (The Guardian)
• ‘It’s what we feared:’ Hospitals from Georgia to California face surging COVID-19 cases, staff shortages and rising deaths (USA Today)
• The Numbers Show Covid Is a Mental Health Crisis (In These Times)
• Drive-by burials and FaceTime farewells: Grief in the Covid era will weigh on the American psyche for years to come (STAT)
• Older Adults and the Mental Health Effects of COVID-19 (JAMA)
• Glaring omission from Biden’s Covid-19 task force: mental health expertise (STAT)
• CDC: Proportion of pediatric emergency room visits for mental health increased sharply amid pandemic (The Hill)
• 1 in 5 coronavirus patients develop mental illness within 90 days (The Hill)
• Two things law enforcement agencies should do to keep police responses from ending in tragedy (The Washington Post)
• There’s no universal phone number for Americans struggling with their mental health, but there should be (The Hill)
• People of color face significant barriers to mental health services (CNN)
• ‘A wound that never closes’: Racism, police violence and the toll on Black mental health (The Sacramento Bee)
• America’s mental health care system fell short for my brother. Access to that care should be a legal right for all (STAT)
• As US hits 200,000 COVID-19 deaths, experts warn of growing mental health crisis (Good Morning America)
• Loneliness doubled among older adults in first months of COVID-19, poll shows (Michigan Medicine)
• Black American anxiety at all-time high, experts say (ABC News)
• The horrifying case of Daniel Prude raises troubling issues about Rochester’s mayor and police force (The Washington Post)
• Pandemic, social unrest increase need for therapists of color, accentuate shortage (Daily Record)
• Depression rates tripled during the pandemic: Study (ABC News)
• How Defunding Abusive Institutions Goes Wrong, and How We Can Do It Right (Los Angeles Review of Books)
• ‘Forever Altered’: Health Care Workers Face Mental Health Struggles After Caring For COVID Patients (wbur)
• Feeling Anxious and Depressed? You’re Right at Home in California. (KHN)
• Virginians need care — not cops — in a mental-health crisis (The Washington Post)
• Bereaved Families Are ‘the Secondary Victims of COVID-19’ (KHN)
• Mental Health and the Covid-19 Pandemic (The New England Journal of Medicine)
• COVID-19 tests industry’s mental health capacity (Modern Healthcare)
• Swamped mental health and addiction services appeal for Covid bailout (Politico)
• As suicide, addiction death projections soar amid COVID-19, treatment centers struggle to stay alive too (USA Today)
• Facing a broken mental health system, many U.S. teens fall off a dangerous ‘cliff’ in their care (STAT)
• In Hard-Hit Areas, COVID’s Ripple Effects Strain Mental Health Care Systems (KHN)
• Front-line doctors face a mental health crisis amid coronavirus. Can medicine overcome the culture of stoicism? (ABC News)
• In the face of Covid-19, the U.S. needs to change how it deals with mental illness (STAT)
• A third of Americans now show signs of clinical anxiety or depression, Census Bureau finds amid coronavirus pandemic (The Washington Post)
• Distress in seniors surges amid coronavirus pandemic (CNN)
• Psychological Trauma Is the Next Crisis for Coronavirus Health Workers (Scientific American)
• Is Everyone Depressed? (The Atlantic)
• Doctor navigates culture and stigma to address black mental health amid COVID-19 (GMA)
• The covid-19 pandemic has shocked the mental-health system out of complacency (The Washington Post)
• The coronavirus pandemic is pushing America into a mental-health crisis (The Washington Post)
• What One Doctor’s Suicide Taught Us (The New York Times)
• Lawmaker Pushing Mental Health Reform: It’s ‘More Needed Than Ever’ (KHN)
• ‘A high-risk perfect storm’: loneliness and financial despair take toll on US mental health (The Guardian)
• For Health Workers, COVID-19 Can Be a Moral Injury Pandemic (Psychology Today)
• Loneliness, anxiety, grief — dealing with the mental health impacts of the coronavirus (Boston Globe)
• 60 percent of U.S. adults are feeling daily stress and worry, new Gallup poll shows (The Washington Post)
• Therapy during the coronavirus pandemic: ‘This is new for all of us’ (The Seattle Times)
• Coronavirus in a psychiatric hospital: ‘It’s the worst of all worlds’ (ABC News)
• Mental Health and the Covid-19 Pandemic (New England Journal of Medicine)
• Coronavirus pandemic sets up potential breakout moment for virtual mental health care (STAT)
• “A Disembodied Voice”: The Loneliness and Solidarity of Treating the Coronavirus in New York (The New Yorker)
• Post-coronavirus, how will we address the trauma health care workers have suffered? (Boston Globe)
• Italy, Spain ICU pressures decline, but emotional toll rises (AP News)
• Virtual therapy is booming during the pandemic. Here’s what it’s like. (USA Today)
• Using social distancing to test if technology can solve the loneliness epidemic (STAT)
• Calls to US helpline jump 891%, as White House is warned of mental health crisis (ABC News)
• ‘It’s horrendous’: Louisiana coronavirus patients’ final moments are often without loved ones (New Orleans Advocate)

Images Courtesy of Miguel Schincariol / Getty