The Science of Complex Systems Is Needed to Ameliorate the Impacts of COVID-19 on Mental Health.

Keywords: systems modeling; simulation; mental health; suicide prevention; COVID-19; recession EN systems modeling simulation mental health suicide prevention COVID-19 recession N.PAG N.PAG 5 11/27/20 20201125 NES 201125 Introduction An Exemplar of Scientific Evolution To assist with proactive and effective responses to the global COVID-19 crisis, the scientific community has been rapidly deploying our most advanced analytic tools to model the dynamics of disease transmission based on existing (albeit imperfect) knowledge, data, and available human and material resources. Most countries, and international agencies, have begun to recognize the unprecedented magnitude of the adverse impact COVID-19 will have on population-based mental health outcomes, mental health services, and suicide risk ([20], [21]). This would allow mental health researchers to develop more sophisticated tools for rapid deployment to respond to national and regional threats to mental health (and national mental wealth), by being able to work collaboratively with governments and local planners to answer the critical questions of: " I what combination of responses are required, at what time, in what sequence, targeted at whom, with what intensity, and for how long?. [Extracted from the article]