Webinar: COVID-19 mental health impacts on at-risk populations
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated inequities in health care long felt by at-risk populations, shining a spotlight on the lack of access to critical mental health care and behavioral health treatment in communities of color. Minority communities have some of the highest infection rates and are disproportionately affected by the economic fallout of COVID-19, posing threats to both mental and physical health, including increased rates of anxiety, depression and potential substance abuse.
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) will host a conversation on the compounding mental health impacts of the pandemic on members of at-risk populations, including lack of access to care, inequities in access to telehealth, absence of culturally responsive care, and how to combat the existing barriers to care these communities already face.
Gail Saltz, MD, a clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill-Cornell School of Medicine, a psychoanalyst with the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, and a PHR board member, will moderate the discussion.
Panelists will be:
- Monica Hooper, PhD, deputy director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
- William Lopez, PhD, MPH, a clinical assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and faculty director of public scholarship at the National Center for Institutional Diversity
- Kerry Sulkowicz, MD, a clinical professor of psychiatry at NYU School of Medicine, founder and managing principal of Boswell Group LLC, a New York-based management consulting firm, and president-elect of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He is a PHR board member and PHR board chair emeritus.
Please submit questions for panelists’ consideration to webinar@phr.org.
