One of the critical ongoing health problems exacerbated by the pandemic has been the increase in anxiety and depression in our young adults. This has highlighted the longer-term failures and limitations of our overburdened healthcare system to address these mental illnesses. Often young adults face the stigma of discussing mental health problems and have nowhere to turn for help. This is particularly true for people of color and those in underserved communities.
Multiple approaches that may be effective are being utilized and others are in development. In addition to medical treatment and medications, other models have been implemented that leverage community resources: peers and families, other partners, and the young adults living with anxiety and depression themselves. Some of these approaches may help reduce the considerable inequities in health care and resources faced by them and the communities in which they live.
ClassACT HR73 invites you to join us for a discussion of this crisis and these promising opportunities. The forum will be moderated by Deborah (Debbie) Winn, HR73, Ph.D., retired epidemiologist at the National Cancer Institute, who will be joined by panelists Eugene V. Beresin, MD, MA, Executive Director of The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds at Massachusetts General Hospital, Professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and senior educator in child and adolescent psychiatry at MGH; Mary Lyons-Hunter, PsyD, Unit Chief of Behavioral Health at the MGH Chelsea Health Care Center, and Lucy Ogbu-Nwobodo, MD, MS, MAS, Asst. Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California, San Francisco.
