Abstract

The world is in the middle of two pandemics – The CoVID-19 pandemic and a pandemic of Mental Health problems. The Covid-19 pandemic and the restrictions that are widely imposed to curb the virus have proved to affect the mental health of individuals negatively. Researchers have demonstrated that the current covid-19 pandemic has induced a wide range of mental health problems like Depressive symptomology, Anxiety, Stress, and suicidal tendencies across the world. However, this trend of mental issues accompanying a pandemic is not new. Therefore, this research paper tries to analyze, at first, the instances and extend of Mental health issues in the previous pandemics with particular attention to the Spanish Flu of 1918, SARS outbreak of 2003, and H1N1 pandemic of 2009. The paper then analyses data from various researches and concludes that the magnitude of the mental health issues is almost always more than the pandemic itself and stays a for longer than the pandemic. This research paper, then, tries to examine a different set of psycho-social and socioeconomic factors responsible for an individual's mental illness during a pandemic of the past. The paper identifies three main factors responsible for mental illness in those pandemics- Stigmatization, Social Alienation, and Socioeconomic inequalities- and tries to briefly explain their relationship with poor mental health. Then in the final section of the paper, we take the discussion further and apply these three psycho-social and socioeconomic factors in the five most vulnerable groups of people in the current Covid-19 pandemic and checks their significance in the current society. The paper then concludes by suggesting some ways for the authorities to control the mental health issues that spread with the pandemic.

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