Even After the Pandemic Ends, We Will Have to Deal with the Mental Health Crisis

While experts feel that we are at the tail end of the pandemic, the events of the previous two years will have lingering effects.  Data from the COVID States Project (Report 84, April 2022) indicate that while the number of people experiencing morbidity and mortality related to the COVID-19 has declined substantially, many Americans continue to experience significant mental health problems:

• About 1 in 4 U.S. adults (27%) report moderate to severe depressive symptoms
• Rates of depression are highest in young adults (50% in 18-24 age group) 
• Rates of depression are lowest among those 65 and older
• Rates of depression are higher (31%) among those with a family member who died, compared to 26% among those without death of a family member
• Rates of depression vary by state, from a low of 20% (Minnesota and Connecticut) to a high of 32% (Alabama, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, New Mexico)
• Rates of depression vary according to party affiliation and are highest among those who identify as Independents, followed by Democrats and then Republicans.

In an opinion piece discussing these findings, Roy Perlis, MD, Director of the Center for Quantitative Health at MGH and Katherine Ognyanova, PhD note that many Americans are in need of mental health care but are not willing or able to access these services.  According to the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse, about one-quarter of people who reported anxiety or depression said they “needed counseling or therapy but did not get it”.

Covid-19 did not create these problems, but it is shining a bright light on the cracks that were already there. We need to keep talking about mental health, among adults as well as among children and adolescents, if we are to finally make things better, no matter how much we are tempted to just change the channel.

We all want to move forward and forget about the pandemic; however, we are currently and will continue to be in a mental health crisis.  In an opinion piece published in the Boston Globe, Maurizio Fava, MD, the Chief of our department addresses the pandemic within the pandemic and outlines measures we must take to tackle the worsening mental health crisis in the United States.  Importantly, he notes that this is not just a pandemic-driven crisis; long before the pandemic, many Americans have struggled to access mental health services.  

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a significant toll on the mental health of Americans, and our current system of psychiatric care cannot possibly manage this tremendous increase in the prevalence of psychiatric illness in our country. Dr. Fava states, “We need a bold approach, with joint efforts to help with this from all stakeholders, including legislators, insurance companies, and regulators.”

The country’s mental health crisis: A pandemic within the pandemic (The Boston Globe)