Mental Health Outcomes Affected by Social, Economic Changes: Brain and Mind Center's Systems Modeling Guide Better Policies

The COVID-19 pandemic has created a crisis in people's mental health due to social and economic changes that happened since it began. Experts from the Brain and Mind Center (BMC) at the University of Sydney warned that the disruption by COVID-19 could lead to long-term problems on mental health.

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Mental Health Outcomes Affected by Social, Economic Changes: Brain and Mind Centre's Systems Modeling Guide Better Policies

Brain and Mind Centre's Mental Health Modeling is Making Global Impact

The university's news release reported that experts developed systems modeling to link social and economic changes and mental health outcomes that guide better policy changes. This month, it has been globally recognized as one of the Top 10 Innovations in Mental Health.

The recognition was announced in the report of Scientific American. Meanwhile, the BMC published an essay in Nature about their mental health modeling and computer simulations.

The essay was led by Associate Professor Jo-An Occhipinti, together with Dr. Adam Skinner, the BMC's head of Systems Modeling, Simulation and Data Science group, and senior author Professor Ian Hickie, who represents the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Metal Health.

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Brain and Mind Center's Mental Health Modeling

The authors wrote in the Nature essay that despite the growing mental health crisis during the pandemic, they see it as a learning opportunity from the integrated and systematic approach to creating better policies. They pointed out that most of the potent mental health interventions could focus on the social and economic aspects affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

In particular, many struggles in their jobs and childcare this time. The authors said that providing and improving employment and childcare could help alleviate the mental health crisis.

Furthermore, they highlight key priorities in improving the public's mental health and preventing suicides. The authors described an upcoming blueprint based on research by BMC and supported by the World Economic Forum. They customized system models on mental health that can be implemented around the world. It will be released soon in the Frontiers in Psychiatry.

Associate Professor Occhipinti said that since systems modeling has been used to forecast the spread of COVID-19 and the impact of alternative strategies to mitigate transmission, it could also be used to tackle mental health during this time. She emphasized the importance of the modelings approach to address significant challenges of mental health.

"History has shown us that spreading resources too thinly across a range of programs or taking an ad hoc, reactive approach to decision making is inadequate to tackle today's mental health crisis," Occhipinti said in the news release.

Professor Hickie added that the traditional approach of using retrospective data to identify risk factors only brought partial progress, which mental health modeling seeks to rectify. The co-authors concluded that modeling and simulation could help address the challenges in mental health.