The brief discusses the mental health issues that arise as a result of the pandemic. Such policies have been essential for creating healthy societies for over thirty years (Browne et al., 2018). Since one in five people living in political or social conflict settings has a mental health condition, millions of people struggle with it due to global uncertainty caused by the pandemic (United Nations [UN], 2020). Thus, the author proves his opinion by pointing out that many people fear the injections and deaths around them, worrying about it whenever they are isolated from their loved ones. Many women and children become victims of domestic violence caused by quarantine and constant contact with abusers. Such stressors trigger people’s nervous system and result in harmful coping methods such as alcohol and drugs. Therefore, the author insists on mental health treatment and recovery from the pandemic by teaching people to cope with multiple stressors.
The presented brief is informative and thorough, providing detailed research and links to policy initiatives connected to COVID-19. The UN defines the issue’s nature and globality through statistics demonstrating mental health deterioration worldwide as the successful implementation of Mintrom’s first key step (Mintrom, 2012). Providing charts and avoiding vague statements are the best ways of utilizing metrics to quantify the problem (Bardach & Patashnik, 2020). However, it fails to emphasize the role of government in solving mental health problems. For example, it could include how governments reduce the effect of mental health conditions through a range of expenditure measures (Mintrom & O’Connor, 2020). Unfortunately, the brief does not include the roles and duties of street-level bureaucrats or mental health professionals who deliver their services to patients (Lipsky, 2010). It is disadvantageous as therapists do not know how to improve their approaches.
In contrast, it includes the UN’s action plan, such as attracting UNESCO, UNFPA, and UNHCR, but overlooks governmental engagement (UN, 2020). Brief’s other advantage is proposing alternative solutions for the problem as it mentions how countries like Lebanon, New Zealand, and the Bahamas adopted other solutions. Still, the policy brief does not identify the main criteria for the most successful option and does not consider outcomes for each alternative.
I agree with most of the policy brief because the text clearly defines the problem and proposes an action plan. Its concern with the global approach to protecting mental health and strengthening social cohesion and solidarity are the focus areas of the brief. However, the universality of the proposed solutions should be doubted as it does not consider personal reasons for neglecting psychological health. Some public policies do not succeed because they require a change in human nature but do not facilitate it (Mazmanian & Sabatier, 1983). For example, people do not attain therapies because they fear judgment and the unknown (Bennett, 2019). Therefore, the lack of mental health support centers and poor financing are not the only reasons for the problem, as the brief’s authors suggest.
The brief should include many more policy tools because it is impossible to resolve mental health issues without them. The UN indeed considers some governing instruments that help to achieve its goals and treat marginalized people. These tools involve various social actors in constant discussions with each other (Bali et al., 2021). For example, technology is a tool necessary to provide remote mental health care for isolated people (The UN, 2020). Meanwhile, substantive policy instruments are required to deal with resource nature, variety, quantity, and delivery (Werdiningtyas et al., 2020). However, the UN does not mention any substantive tools to allocate recourses when dealing with the problem. It would be better if the brief elaborated more on health care benefit packages and insurance schemes that include mental health care.
References
Bali, A. S., Howlett, M., Lewis, J. M., & Ramesh, M. (2021). Procedural policy tools in theory and practice. Policy and Society, 40(3), 295-311.
Bardach, E., & Patashnik, E. M. (2020). A practical guide for policy analysis (5th edition). Sage.
Bennett, T. (2019). Why do people avoid mental health treatment?TriveWorks. Web.
Browne, J., Coffey, B., Cook, K., Meiklejohn, S., Palermo, C. (2018). A guide to policy analysis as a research method, Health Promotion International, 34(5), 1032–1044.
Lipsky, M. (2010). Street-level bureaucracy. Russell Sage Foundation.
Mazmanian, D. A & Sabatier, P. A. (1983). Implementation and public policy. University Press of America.
Mintrom, M. (2012). Contemporary Policy Analysis. Oxford University Press.
Mintrom, M., & O’Connor, R. (2020). The importance of policy narrative: Effective government responses to Covid-19. Policy Design and Practice, 3(3), 205-227.
United Nations. (2020). United Nations policy brief: COVID-19 and the need for action on mental health. Web.
Werdiningtyas, R., Weib, Y., Western, A. (2020). Understanding policy instruments as rules of interaction in social-ecological system frameworks. Geography and Sustainability, 1(4), 295-303.