Summary: The mental health consequences of health emergencies and disasters have the potential to be severe and sustained. Yet the long-term patterns of psychological response remain unclear. Effective planning and implementation of prevention, preparation, response, and recovery rely on understanding the trajectories for post-traumatic stress symptoms, depression, and anxiety prevalence in the years following disasters and pandemic exposure, and identifying associated risk and protective factors. A systematic review of mental health literature identified trajectories of change for mental health concerns in the years following disaster exposure, differentiated by age and disaster type. Overall, mental health rates show a gradual improvement over time, but trajectories vary by disorder, age, and disaster type. Children and adolescents are at significantly heightened risk of mental health concerns after disasters, with elevated scores compared to adults, at every time point. A comprehensive range of multi-level risk and protective factors can determine potential areas for mental health support and disaster risk reduction strategies. The chronicity of mental health outcomes after disasters and pandemics highlights a critical need for tailored, sustainable mental health services, particularly for children and adolescents. Innovative techniques in co-design offer an important opportunity for collaborative and informed community-level interventions that have the potential to address existing and emerging inequalities. Long-term mental health support and developing targeted strategies to enhance resilience among vulnerable groups in the aftermath of disasters and pandemics are critically important.
Elizabeth Newnham (Sun,) studied this question.