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1. Working from Home and Mental Well-being in the EU at Different Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Gendered Look at Key Mediators

Author:
Sandra Leitner
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies (WIIW)
Abstract:
This paper analyses the relationship between working from home (WFH) and mental well-being at different stages during the first two critical years of the COVID-19 pandemic, when governments repeatedly imposed lockdowns and enacted WFH mandates to contain the spread of the virus. Using data from a representative survey conducted at four different time periods in 2020 (first lockdown, subsequent gradual reopening), 2021 (further lockdown) and 2022 (restrictions widely lifted) in the 27 EU member states, it examines the potentially changing role of several mediators over time, such as work-family conflict, family-work conflict, stability, resilience, isolation, the importance of different support networks, workload, physical risk of contracting COVID-19 at work, and housing conditions. For the first lockdown, it also differentiates by previous WFH experience, in terms of WFH novices and experienced WFH workers. It differentiates by gender, in order to take the potential gendered nature and effect of COVID-19 measures into account. The results show that while there was no direct relationship between WFH and mental well-being, there are several important mediators whose relevance was specific not only to certain stages of the pandemic, but also to previous experience with WFH and gender. Stability is the only mediator that was relevant over the entire two-year pandemic period. Work-family conflict and family-work conflict were only relevant during the first lockdown, while resilience and isolation mattered especially when most of the EU economies had lifted most of their restrictions. Unlike established WFH workers, WFH novices had an advantage during the first lockdown, benefiting from lower family-work conflict and more helpful networks of family and friends. Moreover, our results differ by gender: for females who undertook WFH, important mediators were work-family conflict and family-work conflict. Both were related to adjustments they had to make in work and non-work hours in response to the enforced closure of schools and childcare facilities during the lockdowns, especially during the first. For males who undertook WFH, especially WFH novices, support from networks of family and friends was an important mediator.
Topic:
Labor Issues, European Union, Mental Health, COVID-19, Well-Being, and Working from Home
Political Geography:
Europe and Global Focus

2. Role of Gardening in Mental Health, Food Security, and Economic Well-Being in Resettled Refugees: A Mixed Methods Study

Author:
Rashmi Gangamma, Bhavneet Walia, and Shaelise Tor
Publication Date:
03-2024
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on Migration and Human Security
Institution:
Center for Migration Studies of New York
Abstract:
Home and community gardening is emerging as a beneficial intervention for resettled refugee populations. Using an interdisciplinary lens, we examined whether gardening influences mental health, food security, and economic well-being. A mixed methods study (n = 29) was conducted with quantitative surveys to assess indicators of mental health, food security, and economic well-being. Qualitative, semi-structured interviews explored gardener participants’ experience of gardening benefits (n = 10). Participants had on average been in the United States for seven and a half years, with most having lived in refugee camps prior to arrival. Findings showed gardeners reporting fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression, and trauma, and lesser food insecurity than non-gardeners, and similar indicators of economic well-being. Non-parametric regression analysis showed that being a gardener significantly predicted less psychological distress. Qualitative data substantiated these findings with gardeners reporting improved mental health, closer family, social relationships and connections with culture, and more access to fresh and organic food. The multiple, simultaneous benefits of gardening reported here provide strong support for building community-based health promotion programs to assist refugee integration, including long after arrival. The study further highlights the importance of examining these interrelated factors of mental health, food security, and economic well-being simultaneously and reevaluating the established goals of refugee resettlement, particularly in the United States. We offer the following recommendations: • Policymakers and refugee resettlement practitioners should integrate culturally appropriate community-based health promotion efforts in refugee programs long after the initial resettlement period. • Researchers on refugee integration outcomes should include interdisciplinary perspectives that offer comprehensive understanding of processes related to health outcomes. • Policymakers on refugee resettlement and integration should consider the linkages between mental health, food security, and economic well-being.
Topic:
Food Security, Refugees, Mental Health, Resettlement, Well-Being, and Gardening
Political Geography:
Global Focus and United States of America

3. Tracking the Fortunes of Corporate Psychedelia

Author:
Sandy Hager
Publication Date:
01-2024
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
City Political Economy Research Centre (CITYPERC), University of London
Abstract:
In recent years, new biotech companies have emerged hoping to cash in on a medical psychedelics market expected to be worth billions. This article examines the business models of two of the largest such companies. According to conventional wisdom, for-profit players are best positioned to deliver new cures for mental illness at scale because of their ability to tap capital markets. The analysis presented here challenges this story on two counts. First, it argues that profitability in the pharmaceutical business depends not on rapid scaling per se, but on controlling and restricting access to maintain pricing power. Second, it claims that the unruliness of psychedelics – manifested in the presence of cheap generics, murky intellectual property claims, and high costs of administration – raises serious questions about their commercial viability. The article then assesses the sector’s embrace of Johnson and Johnson’s patented form of esketamine, Spravato, as its prototype for commercialization. Spravato may provide a pathway for profitability, but patients must contend with high prices and a drug that provides only short-term relief and requires indefinite dosing. Rather than disrupt Big Pharma, corporate psychedelia replicates its main features, raising questions about its claims to tackle the mental health crisis.
Topic:
Business, Mental Health, Pharmaceuticals, Biotechnology, Psychedelics, and Medicalization
Political Geography:
Global Focus

4. Towards caring and safeguarding research practices – A trauma-informed approach to violence-related qualitative research

Author:
Gugu Resha and Amina Mwaikambo
Publication Date:
10-2023
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR)
Abstract:
IIn recent years, there has been a growing recognition of the importance of understanding vicarious trauma among practitioners and researchers of sexual and gender-based violence as well as other forms of violence. Mental health practitioners and organisations working with people affected by violence are framing the provision of resources and tools to prevent vicarious trauma as a crucial ethical and institutional obligation. This comes from the understanding that trauma exposure can affect both the research participants and the researcher and can have lingering effects well beyond the duration of the study in the form of re-experiencing thoughts, feelings and sensations that were experienced during a traumatic event or the re-telling of that event. Among these risks faced by researchers, scholars have included the challenge of blurred boundaries between interviews and therapy during qualitative research, the spillover effects of traumatic experiences and emotional collateral experienced by research staff, and countertransference of trauma which has mostly been described in the context of therapists and clients but also extends to researchers. Research has also shown that plans for researcher safety and well-being are a necessary strategy for building researcher resilience and preventing vicarious trauma. The growing literature on this topic reveals the centrality of this issue to the area on qualitative research, violence and trauma. The work that the Center for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) has done on violence and how it impacts communities over the past few decades has highlighted the importance of support mechanisms and systems to ensure the well-being of the staff who carry out research with participants who have witnessed or experienced violence. Our own reflections from CSVR researchers, fieldworkers, and mental health practitioners have shown the need to establish a rigorous and consistent framework to adequately capacitate staff to understand the risks that come with designing and carrying out research with participants on their experiences of violence. More specifically, these reflections have highlighted the reality of how trauma from these experiences affects research participants in their engagement with researchers, and how the repeated exposure to people recounting their traumatic experiences can inadvertently affect researchers too. These reflections indicate the need for research frameworks that take the effects of trauma into account, to guide researchers in their research design in order to safeguard their own well-being as well as that of their participants during the project. This practice brief consolidates the feedback of researchers, data collectors, and mental health practitioners about the challenges they face in the field and offers practical strategies on how to use a trauma-informed approach in research to provide adequate support, training, and measures to ensure that these adverse effects are limited with appropriate planning and implementation. The objective of this practice brief is to promote a trauma-informed research practice that ensures that research projects: Address research participants in a manner that is sensitive to traumatic experiences of violence and its effects; Avoid re-traumatising participants; Avoid second-hand traumatisation of researchers and data collectors; and, Contain any adverse effects on the researchers and data collectors that may emerge from the context and exposure to people who have witnessed and experienced violence. This brief seeks to improve and consolidate the existing tools within CSVR’s own research methods and operationalise trauma-informed approach into the research design process and distress protocol. Furthermore, this brief seeks to provide guidance for CSVR’s partners, as well as other research and nonprofit organisations, social intervention projects, and practitioners who conduct research in areas such as gender-based violence, conflict, and other forms of violence that may result in traumatic effects on individuals, families, and communities.
Topic:
Inequality, Trauma, Mental Health, Social Cohesion, Qualitative Research, and Safeguarding
Political Geography:
Global Focus

5. Human Development and Mental Health: New Approaches and Metrics Needed

Author:
Julius Caesar Trajano
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Commentary and Analysis
Institution:
Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Abstract:
The latest UN study reiterated the importance of mental wellbeing and psychological resilience in human development and security. A change in approach and metrics is necessary to improve tackling of mental health issues while simultaneously managing contemporary challenges such as climate change, conflict prevention, and protection of the environment.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Health, International Cooperation, United Nations, Mental Health, and Resilience
Political Geography:
Global Focus

6. Does Justice Mind? Understanding the Links between Justice and Mental Health

Author:
Pema Doornenbal
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
Over the past two years, COVID-19 has deeply impacted mental health, both for individuals and entire communities, weakening trust between governments and people. This brief explores how justice systems and actors are interlinked with mental health and psychosocial wellbeing, and it makes the case for addressing the negative effects of these dynamics in a more systemized way.
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, United Nations, Mental Health, COVID-19, and Peacebuilding
Political Geography:
Global Focus

7. Mental Health Conditions and Substance Use: Comparing U.S. Needs and Treatment Capacity with Those in Other High-Income Countries

Author:
Melinda K. Abrams, Reginald D. Williams II, Katharine Fields, and Roosa Tikkanen
Publication Date:
05-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
About one-quarter of U.S. adults report having a mental health diagnosis such as anxiety or depression or experiencing emotional distress. This is one of the highest rates among 11 high-income countries. While U.S. adults are among the most willing to seek professional help for emotional distress, they are among the most likely to report access or affordability issues. Emotional distress is associated with social and economic needs in all countries. Nearly half of U.S. adults who experience emotional distress report such worries, a higher share than seen in other countries. The United States has some of the worst mental health–related outcomes, including the highest suicide rate and second-highest drug-related death rate. The U.S. has a relatively low supply of mental health workers, particularly psychologists and psychiatrists. Just one-third of U.S. primary care practices have mental health professionals on their team, compared to more than 90 percent in the Netherlands and Sweden.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Mental Health, Drugs, and Substance Abuse
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Global Focus

8. Mental Health and Psychosocial Support to Sustain Peace: Four Areas to Explore for Improving Practice

Author:
Paige Arthur and Céline Monnier
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center on International Cooperation (CIC)
Abstract:
After experimenting with months of lockdown and imposed social distancing measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, people everywhere now have a more immediate understanding of how prolonged crisis can create challenges for both individuals’ mental health as well as maintaining the social fabric of communities. However, social fragmentation and mental distress created by adverse environments are not new, nor are they limited to COVID-19. Gross social injustices or armed conflicts have provoked wide-spread mental suffering, broken down social norms, and undermined social cohesion since time immemorial. Generations grow up in the midst of violence, normalizing it, or losing capacity to trust others or their institutions. Hence, neglecting the psychosocial impacts of social injustices and violence on the individual and society undermines other efforts to build peaceful societies. Nevertheless, the use of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) approaches to build peace or prevent violent conflict remains anecdotal and ad hoc. This paper summarizes the existing arguments for why MHPSS should be more systematically used to sustain peace, and offers four opportunities to use MHPSS approaches in sustaining peace efforts at the UN: Support national capacities; Integrate MHPSS as a normal part of sustaining peace strategies; Increase expertise on MHPSS as part of sustaining peace; Creative partnerships to support an integrated approach.
Topic:
Mental Health, Peace, COVID-19, and Health Crisis
Political Geography:
Global Focus

9. Do Americans Face Greater Mental Health and Economic Consequences from COVID-19? Comparing the U.S. with Other High-Income Countries

Author:
Michelle M. Doty, Eric C. Schneider, Roosa Tikkanen, Arnav Shah, and Reginald D. Williams II
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Commonwealth Fund
Abstract:
With more than 4 million confirmed cases and 150,000 deaths as of August, the United States is failing to control the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when many nations are reopening their economies and societies, the U.S. is struggling in its attempts to do the same. To examine the early impact of the pandemic on the well-being of adults in the U.S. and abroad, the Commonwealth Fund joined the survey research firm SSRS to interview 8,259 adults age 18 and older between March and May 2020. It is the latest in the Commonwealth Fund’s series of cross-national comparisons featuring the United States and nine other high-income countries that participate in the Fund’s annual International Health Policy Survey. The following exhibits illustrate COVID-19’s effects on people’s mental health and economic security and compare levels of public trust in national leaders in responding to the pandemic.
Topic:
Health, Health Care Policy, Mental Health, and Public Health
Political Geography:
United States, Europe, and Global Focus

10. Technology-Facilitated Gender-Based Violence: An Overview

Author:
Suzie Dunn
Publication Date:
12-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI)
Abstract:
As digital technologies become more sophisticated, so does technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV). This type of violence can take many forms, from the release of personal information and private images without consent, to online stalking and death threats. For perpetrators of TFGBV, the internet is their weapon of choice — it allows them to monitor and control their targets from anywhere in the world. Victim-survivors have little recourse against the many forms of online gender-based violence, including threats of harm, some of which have been carried out. The resulting mental and physical health effects of TFGBV, among other impacts, have forced many victim-survivors out of online spaces and silenced their voices.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Science and Technology, Gender Based Violence, and Mental Health
Political Geography:
Global Focus