BY MIKA YOKOTA Introduction The Spring Festival on January 25, 2020 has become an unexpected and unforgettable memory for the people of China. On December 31, 2019, Wuhan Municipal Health Commission authorities reported multiple pneumonia cases of unknown etiology in Wuhan, Hubei Province. A series of events that followed disallowed the country to celebrate the … Continue reading COVID-19 and Mental Health: Sleep, Anxiety, and Suicide
BY LAURA MICHAEL A boy poses in a picture for suicide awareness day. Although raising awareness through days like this are very important, initiatives to counter the societal flaws that lead to high suicide rates and to target subsets of the population, like white middle aged men, that have high suicide rates must be viewed … Continue reading White Male Suicide: The Exception to Privelege
BY HOLLY ROBINSON A home destroyed in Hurricane Katrina. Source: Infrogmation. One in four children living in the United States experiences a traumatic event before reaching adulthood.1 These distressing encounters, which include experiences from sexual abuse to natural disasters, affect the mental health of the individual as well as the overall wellbeing of the population. … Continue reading PTSD in Children and Adolescents: Equivalent Exposures, Distinct Diagnoses
BY OHVIA MURALEETHARAN A beautiful island country of only 25,300 square miles, Sri Lanka has a bloody history, full of war and ethnic conflict. Source: Creative Commons. Although many refer to Sri Lanka as a success story in achieving high health outcomes despite its low income, a crucial side of its past often remains unaddressed. … Continue reading The Unseen Consequences of War: Responding to Sri Lanka’s Mental Health Burden
BY ANABEL STAROSTA Beginning in 1990, a civil war between the Hutu-led government and the Tutsi minority group erupted in Rwanda. In 1994, the civil war escalated into a genocide orchestrated by Hutus against Tutsis. As a result of murder and systematic brutality, genocide against the Tutsis and non-extremist Hutus left approximately one million people dead within a period … Continue reading Mental Health Legacies of the Rwandan Genocide
BY ERIKA LYNN-GREEN In 2005, LA Times columnist Steve Lopez met Nathaniel Ayers, a Julliard-educated musician whose diagnosed schizophrenia left him homeless on the streets of Los Angeles. The friendship between the two men grew into a book, as well as the high-profile movie The Soloist. In 2013, with the support of Lopez, a … Continue reading Health, Homelessness, and Conditional Morality in the United States
BY FARAH AL HADID Many refugees that cross the border are young children, escaping violent conditions in Syria. Source: European Commission DG ECHO When Syrian refugees cross the border to Jordan, their physical injuries are clearly evident. The mental injuries that they have incurred, on the other hand, are far less apparent.1 It is estimated … Continue reading Mental Health of Syrian Refugees in Jordan
BY ANABEL STAROSTA Mental health is an incredibly debilitating health problem around the world, yet due to the stigma and lack of understanding, it is an extremely difficult issue to address. According to a study by the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and Harvard University, in high-income countries, mental disorders have the second largest … Continue reading Race and Ethnicity as Persistent Contributors to Poor Mental Health
BY SARA MEYERS “Pura Vida” the saying goes in Costa Rica – “Pure Life”. I have to say I agree and disagree with this label they have given themselves. I witnessed the beauty of Costa Rica, including its abundance of friendly faces, but I also found it was a country in need of much legislation … Continue reading Pura Vida
BY SOPHIA KECSKES "I miss the sea, I miss my friends, I miss ice cream, I miss happiness and joy. I MISS MY ORDINARY LIFE,” tweeted Farah Baker, a 16-year-old girl from Gaza who self-describes as a “modern Anne Frank.”1 With 199,000 followers, this young girl spreads awareness about the nature of her life in the … Continue reading Enduring Disorder: PTSD in Gazan Children
Yale Global Health Review 