Podcast | Digital Health and Innovation | July 13, 2020

Peeling Back the Scabs of Socioeconomic Inequity and the Mental Health Impacts of a Pandemic

The exacerbated impact of a pandemic on mental health is widely uncovered. We as a society must understand how prevalent mental illness is, how it is further impacted by a pandemic crisis, and realize that it is time to stop stigmatizing mental health and treat it in the same light as physical well being. This discussion explores common causes for the rise of mental health issues during a pandemic environment, avenues for seeking treatment, how the perception of telehealth has changed since the pandemic began, how to address and improve the disparity of socioeconomic inequities facing the most vulnerable communities to COVID-19, and what is being done to identify and mitigate increased stress and higher levels of anxiety to workers in the healthcare field.

Earn CME Credit

Dr. Anandhi Narasimhan
Dr. Anandhi Narasimhan is a child, adolescent and adult psychiatrist in Los Angeles, California. She has had numerous media appearances including CNN, CNN International, USA Today, The Tavis Smiley Show, Fox News, Vice, etc. Dr. Narasimhan also received the “Hind Rattan” award or “Jewel of India” award for her contributions to medicine and media. She is also an asylum evaluator for Physicians for Human Rights and involved in research looking into using digital therapeutics and artificial intelligence to improve early detection and interventions.

Fred Newmark
Fred Newmark has seventeen years of experience in healthcare consulting, recruiting, medical staff planning and development.  His diverse background includes recruiting oversight of 24 hospitals within a large healthcare system, Vice-President of Recruitment for a national Emergency Medicine/Hospitalist Medicine company and Operations Manager for a large national recruiting agency.  Fred also created a Residency Outreach Education program to assist Residents with their post training job search process.  Talks included CV preparation, effective interviewing techniques, how to select and work with recruiters, understanding compensation models, leveraging value and contract negotiation.  Fred now consults as co-founder and Managing Partner of  Newmark Healthcare Services, working with physicians, hospitals and group practices.  He also has a video series called Behind the Curtain of Healthcare that can be found on YouTube.

Andy Mohan, MD, MBA, MSc
Dr. Anand “Andy” Mohan has been working as a physician informaticist and Healthcare IT executive for over 10 years.  He has worked on the inpatient and ambulatory side with all specialties throughout the lifecycle of an EHR implementation. His focus is on clinical workflow optimization, utilizing EHR systems efficiently, provider adoption, and population health initiative technology implementations.

Learn More About Andy

References and Resources

    1. Pfefferbaum B, North CS. Mental health, and the Covid-19 pandemic. New England Journal of Medicine. 2020 Apr 13;
    2. Wang C, Pan R, Wan X, Tan Y, Xu L, Ho CS, et al. Immediate psychological responses, and associated factors during the initial stage of the 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) epidemic among the general population in  https://www.physiciansupportline.com/. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2020; 17:1729;
    3. Physician support line website: https://www.physiciansupportline.com/.
Back to Podcasts