In March 2020 in the U.S., stay at home orders were put in place, schools went remote, people began working from home, and many Americans were furloughed or laid off. Since the surge of COVID-19 cases, the pandemic has increased the number of people stuck in their houses through the various measures set in place…
Boredom. Zoom. Monotony. Loneliness. The effects of COVID-19 are far-reaching, ranging from a multitude of family struggles to mental health issues. As this virus has shown, certain subsets of the population are disproportionately affected by COVID-19, including minority populations who face a host of racial injustices daily as well as individuals who were previously afflicted…
During the COVID-19 pandemic, mental health among Americans has declined rapidly [2]. In particular, teenagers and young adults are having an especially difficult time maintaining good mental health [1]. Many teenagers do not know how to improve their mental health as this topic is not addressed in many U.S. high schools. To learn more about…
The sky turns pitch black as snow falls on the cold, hard ground. You crave the warm blanket of sleep and cannot bring yourself to leave your bed to interact with others around you. Like a hibernating animal, all you wish to do is eat, sleep and repeat. For some, this is a feeling that…
It has been over 40 years since the Alma-Ata Declaration defined the concept of primary healthcare and brought international awareness to the extreme health inequities that permeate the globe. Unfortunately, the declaration’s ambitious goal of healthcare for all by 2000 was not met as intended [3]. Nonetheless, there still exist promising implementations of primary healthcare…
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most shared experiences has been one of isolation, quarantine, and social distancing. But how much of this experience can we truly say is shared? During an era that requires skillsets of rapid adaptation and resilience, the mental health consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have presented a monumental challenge…
In an age when 7.1 percent of U.S. adults have had at least one major depressive episode and an estimated 31 percent of U.S. adults will experience any sort of anxiety disorder within their lives, it seems like our country has accepted the presence of mental illness as the new normal. With the ongoing pandemic,…
The following piece was written as part of The Pandemic: Science and Society course offered from Aug. 17 – Sep. 4. Comorbidity is frequently used in psychology and medicine to describe a state in which two or more conditions and/or disorders present together. In the midst of the global COVID-19 pandemic brought on by SARS-CoV-2,…
*All of this information is only accurate based on information until April 8, 2020.* SARS-CoV-2, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, has affected over 2.6 million people worldwide. Most current evidence suggests that the virus was transmitted from bats to pangolins and eventually to humans. The medium of transmission was most likely bodily fluid contact…
Mental health encompasses more than just clinically diagnosed conditions that don long, scientific titles. According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, mental health is an umbrella term used to characterize any “condition that affects a person’s thinking, feeling or mood” (1). Mental health struggles can present in drastically different fashions for different populations. For…