Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Stephen M. Strakowski, MD: Hello. I'm Steve Strakowski, and I'm glad to be back with you all again here at Medscape. We are talking today about something that's obviously on everyone's mind: the COVID-19 pandemic, and particularly how it impacts mental health.
I'm the vice dean for research and a professor of psychiatry at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. We, like everyone, are scrambling to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Within that context, we really have started to focus on mental health concerns and events that we have to pay attention to.
I'm very pleased and fortunate today that we have two experts joining me for a conversation about mental illness, and in particular, a couple of major risks that may be arising from this odd circumstance that we're living in.
First, I'd like to introduce Dr Andy Keller. Andy is the president and CEO of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute in Texas. This institute is very well known nationally for being a leader in policy toward improving the care of people with mental illness and for helping programs around the state of Texas redesign or analyze their outcomes to improve care.
COMMENTARY
New Projections on Suicide, Substance Abuse, and COVID-19
Stephen M. Strakowski, MD; Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH; Andy Keller, PhD
DisclosuresMay 08, 2020
Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.
This transcript has been edited for clarity.
Stephen M. Strakowski, MD: Hello. I'm Steve Strakowski, and I'm glad to be back with you all again here at Medscape. We are talking today about something that's obviously on everyone's mind: the COVID-19 pandemic, and particularly how it impacts mental health.
I'm the vice dean for research and a professor of psychiatry at the Dell Medical School at the University of Texas at Austin. We, like everyone, are scrambling to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Within that context, we really have started to focus on mental health concerns and events that we have to pay attention to.
I'm very pleased and fortunate today that we have two experts joining me for a conversation about mental illness, and in particular, a couple of major risks that may be arising from this odd circumstance that we're living in.
First, I'd like to introduce Dr Andy Keller. Andy is the president and CEO of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute in Texas. This institute is very well known nationally for being a leader in policy toward improving the care of people with mental illness and for helping programs around the state of Texas redesign or analyze their outcomes to improve care.
Medscape Psychiatry © 2020 WebMD, LLC
Any views expressed above are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect the views of WebMD or Medscape.
Cite this: Stephen M. Strakowski, Nassir Ghaemi, Andy B. Keller. New Projections on Suicide, Substance Abuse, and COVID-19 - Medscape - May 08, 2020.
Tables
Authors and Disclosures
Authors and Disclosures
Author(s)
Stephen M. Strakowski, MD
Chairman, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, Cincinnati, Ohio; Chief of Psychiatry, University Hospital, Cincinnati, Ohio
Disclosure: Stephen M. Strakowski, MD, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships:
Served as a consultant for: Pfizer Inc.
Served as a speaker for: CME Outfitters; Adamed
Chaired Symposium for: Consensus Medical Communications
Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH
Professor of Psychiatry, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine; Lecturer in Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts; Director, Translational Medicine-Neuroscience, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Cambridge, Massachusetts
Disclosure: Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH, has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships:
Serve(d) as director, officer, partner, employee, advisor, consultant, or trustee for: Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research
Serve(d) as a speaker or a member of a speakers bureau for: Sunovion Received research grant from: Sunovion
Andy B. Keller, PhD
President, Chief Executive Officer, Linda Perryman Evans Presidential Chair, Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, Dallas, Texas
Disclosure: Andy B. Keller, PhD, has disclosed no relevant financial relationships.