Responses and Implications of US Mental Health Policy to the Post-COVID19 Mental Health Crisis: Focusing on New York State

Abstract

As the mental health of people has significantly deteriorated since COVID-19, the need has grown for expanding mental health services for at-risk individuals and vulnerable groups and responding actively to their needs. In his 2022 State of the Union Address, President Biden announced an initiative consisting of a large number of strategies and interventions to address mental health issues among Americans. In this context, the State of New York has taken several steps to better tackle people’s mental health problems. These steps include: expanding remote mental health care and making telemedicine a standard feature of mental health care; establishing a community mental health crisis care system; increasing the provision of community-based mental health services for improved access to care; instituting new qualification requirements for mental health paraprofessionals, such as peer specialists, to increase the care workforce to ensure continuous provision of mental care services; and vastly increasing spending for all of the mentioned.