COVID-19’s Impact on Mental Health and How Communities Can Move Forward
The CDC Foundation joined forces with Mental Health America last week for an important and timely webinar on COVID-19’s impact on mental health, and the role community-based organizations (CBOs) can play moving forward. The webinar was the fourth in a special series tailored to CBOs and their partners, to help them navigate the emergency response to the pandemic and address the physical and emotional needs of their unique populations.
Around 750 people attended the webinar to get a sense of the types of mental health challenges people are facing during this unprecedented time and—perhaps more importantly—to hear about strategies and resources for addressing those challenges.
Featured speakers included Maddy Reinert, senior director of population health at Mental Health America; Amelia Burke-Garcia, PhD, MA, program area director in the public health department at NORC at the University of Chicago and project director of the CDC Foundation-supported How Right Now campaign; and Robert N. Davison, CEO of the North Jersey-based Mental Health Association of Essex and Morris, Inc.
They discussed how, almost overnight, mental health providers and organizations had to adjust their services to meet growing demand for intervention and assistance. In 2020, the number of people taking an online mental health screening to identify conditions such as anxiety or depression more than doubled from the year before—to over 2.5 million.
“As we moved further into 2020, we had been seeing the rates of mental health concerns increase. But we wanted to know more about exactly what was driving it, so we could create resources and supports that would be most helpful for people following their self-screening,” Reinert explained. Not too surprisingly, coronavirus and current events were cited as major contributors to mental distress. Key drivers included feelings of loneliness and isolation, past trauma, and relationship problems.
Reinert said the data revealed some of the inequities impacting the mental health of black, indigenous, and other people of color. And she emphasized the importance of delivering customized resources that take into account age, demographics, pre-existing conditions, and special populations, such as front-line workers, family caregivers, and the LGBTQ+ community. Mental Health America has created a hub on its website with COVID-19 specific resources.
Another key resource is HowRightNow.org and its companion site Quehacerahora, with communications materials transcreated for Spanish-speaking communities. The evidence-based campaign focuses on the emotions individuals may be feeling at any given moment, such as fear, anger, loneliness or grief. And it provides situation-specific resources to strengthen resiliency and adaptability throughout the pandemic. The How Right Now partner toolkit contains a variety of materials CBOs can use to support the campaign.
Meanwhile, on the front lines, health provider organizations like the North Jersey-based Mental Health Association of Essex and Morris, Inc., have found both challenge and opportunity in outreach efforts during the pandemic. “Literally overnight, we became a major distributor of food, books, games, and hygiene products—not only to our consumers but to the general public,” Davison said. He described their transition to telehealth provider—securing grants to purchase smartphones for those who did not have one; working with partners to set up two low-barrier hotels for the homeless; and providing logistical and infrastructure support to the vaccine rollout.
Davison says it’s important for individuals and organizations to cut themselves some slack when evaluating their response to the pandemic and focus on lessons learned and the road ahead. “Whether you’re a provider, an advocacy organization or a policy organization, no one gets a perfect score in a pandemic.” But as the need continues to grow for mental health resources, treatment and support, “it’s contingent on organizations like us to meet the need.”
To access this and other webinars of interest to community-based organizations and their partners, visit our CBO resource page.
This blog post is supported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $45,939,536 with 100 percent funded by CDC/HHS. The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement by, CDC/HHS or the U.S. Government.
