Blog

Ensuring Access to Mental Health Services During the Pandemic and Beyond

The coronavirus pandemic has turned our lives upside-down. The uncertainty of a global crisis—layered with the challenges of job losses, school closures, lifestyle changes, and social isolation—can generate stress, anxiety, and depression. And for those who previously relied on face-to-face contact with therapists or support groups to cope with mental health issues or substance use disorders, this situation presents an additional challenge. Since the beginning of this crisis, there has been significant focus on ensuring hospitals have enough health care workers to manage a huge surge in patients with COVID-19. Angela Beck, a clinical assistant professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, explains why it’s also important to evaluate the capacity of the mental health workforce to respond to an equally inevitable spike in people struggling with mental and behavioral health issues during this pandemic and into the future.

High-Risk: Diabetes in the time of Coronavirus

According to the American Diabetes association, more than 34 million Americans have diabetes. That's 1 out of every 10 people. The CDC says, all of those people are “at higher risk for severe illness” from coronavirus because of this chronic illness. In this episode, we speak with Gretchen Piatt, an associate professor and the Associate Chair for Education within the Department of Learning Health Sciences at the University of Michigan Medical School as well as an associate professor of Health Behavior and Health Education in the School of Public Health. As a chronic disease epidemiologist, she specializes in health care issues around diabetes. Piatt explains why diabetics have been labeled a high-risk group during the COVID-19 pandemic, talks about their unique risks, and shares what we can do to keep this large population of Americans safe through this emergency.

A National Hotspot: The Coronavirus in Detroit

Ensuring Health Care Workforce Capacity During a Pandemic

In addition to limited supplies of hospital beds, ventilators, masks, and other personal protective equipment, there is another limited—yet vital—health care resource needed to help us get through this pandemic: The workforce of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and others who are putting their own health at risk to care for patients. Angela Beck, a clinical assistant professor of Health Behavior and Health Education at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, explores what policy makers and hospitals can do to keep health care workers safe and healthy and ensure the workforce can meet the growing demands on the health care system.

Making Sense of All the Coronavirus Numbers

Among the many new things we are learning in the age of coronavirus is that humans can produce a lot of data. To help us sort through some of it, we connected with Neil Mehta, assistant professor of Health Management and Policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. Mehta’s research and teaching lies at the intersection of demography, epidemiology, and sociology. Mehta’s clear suggestions about how to digest all the data coming at us helps us think through what those really big numbers actually mean for our own health today and into the future.

Surveillance Testing: Reining in COVID-19 with Data

The need for diagnostic testing has been a critical issue throughout the spread of the coronavirus epidemic. But another form of testing may be the key to gaining control over the pandemic. Surveillance testing currently being performed throughout the world is what is used to gather the data that tells health officials where, who, and how populations are being affected and that can then be used to get in front of further spread. We’ll talk to epidemiologist, Emily Martin about how it works and who’s doing it right.