Restoring mental health at the convergence of global crises: The great public health challenge after the Covid-19 pandemic

Abstract

Introduction: the citizens of today's society are surviving an uncontrolled world in the vision of the very destiny of the human species, bewildered by the effects of its existential behavior, with a science still perplexed and moved, an unbalanced market society, with governments without a compass in the political management of health, economic and social crises; populations still voluntarily imprisoned in their homes and threatened by the State with the maintenance of restrictive measures obliging social distancing, isolation or quarantine. A world surrounded by pandemics, geopolitical crises and converging wars that orbit in the gloom of uncertainty, with serious threats to public health, where fear and social insecurity predominate. The culprits: an invisible viral genome particle that has forced scientists into intense and frantic work in the area of genomics and molecular biology, the coronavirus, even with nothing clear about the true origin of this tiny deadly particle that has terrorized the planet, and global determinants that accompany the new economic crises and changes in the global geopolitical order. The recipe for universal choice to face these challenges has been: stay at home, wash your hands, wear a mask, distance yourself from other people and tolerate with stoicism the media decisions of governments to alleviate crises. Thus, individual and collective mental health today looks in great danger due to its institutional abandonment and the new and unusual risks of convergent crises. A great effort is required from the State and the institutions in carrying out a national diagnosis of the impact of the recent pandemic and other convergent economic and geopolitical crises, in order to formulate a public policy that manages to alleviate the effects of these crises on vulnerable groups of the population. Methodology: a narrative review was carried out, with selection of articles in different databases, such as PsycInfo, Scopus, Google Scholar, PubMed, EBSCO Health and Cochrane, with the purpose of analyzing the great ethical and social challenge of restoring mental health in a difficult context of global crises convergent with the COVID-19 pandemic. Selection of the articles was made based on the criteria of topicality and the degree of thematic link with the object of study. Results: it is possible to identify the true magnitude and depth of the impact of the convergent health, economic and geopolitical crises on the mental health of the different sectors and risk groups of the population; especially on those human groups that are most exposed, vulnerable and with fewer resources, currently overwhelmed by unemployment,  rising inflation, the high cost of living and other spillover effects of crises, as well as the main responsibilities in the political management of the State and public institutions for restoring the effects of the current converging crises on the mental health of citizens.