Announcing our new BNA President-Elect: Tara Spires-Jones
15th April 2021
16th Apr 2020
The British Neuroscience Association (BNA) fully and wholeheartedly supports the urgent call for mental health and brain research in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, as highlighted today by researchers from The Academy of Medical Sciences (AMS) and MQ, in a new paper published in The Lancet Psychiatry.
The paper warns that the COVID-19 pandemic could have a ‘profound’ and ‘pervasive impact’ on global mental health now and in the future, yet a separate recent analysis shows that so far, only a tiny proportion of new scientific publications on COVID-19 have been on mental health impacts.
The paper calls for more widespread mental health monitoring and better ways to protect against, and treat, mental ill health – both of which will require new funding and better coordination.
The general public already have substantial concerns about mental health in relation to the pandemic - according to an Ipsos MORI poll of 1099 members of the UK public, and a survey of 2198 people by the UK mental health research charity, MQ, that included many people with experience of mental health conditions.*
Both surveys were carried out in late March, the week lockdown measures were announced, to inform the Lancet Psychiatry paper. They showed the public had specific concerns related to COVID-19 including increased anxiety, fear of becoming mentally unwell, access to mental health services and the impact on mental wellbeing.
For more information take a look here, or to read the paper in full click here.
*Survey information
Two online surveys were completed to enable the public and people with lived experience of a mental health condition to inform the Lancet Psychiatry paper.