Women's Mental Health: The Impact of COVID-19 and the Need for Immediate Action to Address It

Part of the global pandemic response governments needs to invest in is mental health interventions that are comprehensive, innovative, available, and accessible. Emergency mental health and psychosocial support must be provided for women during the pandemic, as well as during the recovery phase post-pandemic.

The research documented by Brian J. Honermannon past epidemics highlighted the consequences of infectious disease outbreaks on mental health. Even though the COVID-19 pandemic is a physical health crisis, it has also contributed greatly as a major mental health crisis for women. Good mental health is critical to the functioning of all aspects of society. Therefore, a focus on the mental wellbeing of every member of society should be integrated into the COVID-19 pandemic response and recovery phase. 

Although the pandemic severely and negatively impacted the mental health and wellbeing of society at large; women constitute the demographics that have been highly impacted by the mental health burden. Along with frontline workers and first responders (who are also mostly women), children, and older people. This is due in part to the fact that besides being able to quickly slide into the increased caregiving role, women who contract the virus or are taking care of someone with the virus were mentally distressed by the immediate health effects and the consequences of physical isolation. Adding to these stressors is the fact that most women who need to access a wide range of reproductive healthcare services during the lockdown were unable to do so, as funds and attention were repurposed directly for the Covid-19 emergency response

Also, women are bearing the brunt of increased stress at home, taking care of everyone under their care, with little or no consideration of the impact these may have on their mental health. Women in low-income settings are even at greater risk of having their mental health needs overlooked entirely