A lot of us this year have gotten used to relying on computer models for projections of how many new COVID-19 cases we can expect, or when the economy might start to rebound. But those models can’t tell us how we’re going to feel, or how lockdown and grief and social breakdown will change the way we see and experience the world.
Well, turns out there’s a model for that, too.
“We can give you some pretty confident ideas about people's behavioral health responses that are likely to occur in the next six to nine months,” says Dr.Kira Mauseth, a clinical psychologist and instructor at Seattle University, whose model incorporates mental health data from past disasters.
“What we are anticipating is that between 2 to 3 million Washingtonians are going to be adversely affected from a behavioral health perspective by this pandemic.”
On this episode of Transmission, we dig into how our the intertwined crises of COVID-19, an economic recession and widespread unrest over racism are impacting the community’s mental health.
We get a glimpse at when people should be prepared for increases in things like depression and suicides.
We talk with Dr. Micheal Kane, a clinical traumatologist and therapist who treats predominantly African American clients, about how the baseline stress of being Black in America is compounded by the pandemic and the recent social reckoning around police violence.
And producer Kevin Kniestedt takes some advice from a psychiatrist to reconnect with people he’s lost touch with. Of course, it turned into a podcast: Catching Up in Quarantine. We’ll hear excerpts, and how it felt to reach out during a time of isolation.
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