MENTAL HEALTH

the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and leader of the newly created Pandemic Response Institute.

The institute, which is funded by the New York City Economic Development Corp., is a collaboration between Columbia and the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy, and it will partner with nonprofits like the United Way of New York City, corporations and faith-based institutions. It will focus on improving technologies to collect and share data in real time; bolster research and the technologies that will enable officials to quickly ramp up for the next public health emergency; coordinate drills within communities; and promote racial equity in the response to future health crises. “Our goal is not to replicate and duplicate

what the city is doing. The goal of this institute is to work hand in hand with the city and other stakeholders to really identify the gaps and identify the priorities and focus on those,” El-Sadr said.

One way in which New York City Council Member Carlina Rivera has been looking to identify gaps – and address racial and gender inequities – is through a bill that would create an Office of the Patient Advocate within the city health department. “It would collect patient feedback and complaints regarding health care experiences in New York City, answer general questions about insurance and access, and have an investigative and reporting team to look at troubling trends in our city health care facilities,” the former Hospitals Committee chair explained. Initially introduced in 2019, she is hoping the bill will pass in the current term.

Meanwhile, the city health department said much of its work to address racial disparities in vaccine distribution and testing have centered on the Taskforce on Racial Inclusion and Equity, led by NYCHA executive Sideya Sherman.

Bassett said the state doesn’t have a program similar to the Pandemic Response Institute, but the state’s Public Health Corps fellowship program was focused on preparing for future public health emergencies. The program was created to identify and train public health professionals to work with local health departments and communities.

Levine has hailed the creation of the institute, and has also told a newly created COVID-19 recovery task force in his office to help plan and advocate for better preparedness, among other responsibilities. It is chaired by Aldrin Bonilla, who is executive vice president of the Fund for the City of New York and a former Manhattan deputy borough president. While the task force is still being formed, Bonilla said it is already considering ideas that could help deal with future surges.

The Manhattan Solid Waste Advisory Board, which is under the borough president office’s purview, has proposed strengthening the infrastructure around wastewater testing. Bonilla noted the growing area of research relating to detecting and tracking the presence of the coronavirus in municipal wastewater. “By looking at our wastewater, both the liquid and the solid waste, this could be a leading indicator so you can get ahead of the next wave.”

Recently, Adams told MSNBC, “It’s time to live with COVID and build systems around COVID until it dissipates and leaves us.” Levine said he agreed with that approach, and added: “Let’s have systems in place so that we can immediately pivot without some of the chaos and delays that we endured over the last two years.” ■

“It’s time to live with COVID and build systems around COVID until it dissipates and leaves us.”

– New York City Mayor Eric Adams

Sheryl Huggins Salomon is City & State New York’s advisory board chair and the chief communications officer at the NYU McSilver Institute for Poverty Policy and Research.

FALLING BEHIND

Schools are struggling to keep up with a surge in mental health and behavioral issues related to the pandemic.

By Clem Richardson

The return to school buildings has revealed more about the mental health toll of the pandemic.

THE PANDEMIC CONTINUES to weigh heavily on the mental health of the city’s 1.1 million school children, their parents and especially on the teachers charged with keeping them on academic track. Deaths of friends and loved ones, new variants and the possibility of infection they bring, changes in protocols like mask wearing or isolation time after infection, and the endless debates about in-person or remote learning are just some of the issues impacting the school communities.

City Council Member and former Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer notes that even deciding how to mark a student who misses class absent can impact the student’s future. “Maybe the parents want the child to stay home because there was an outbreak at school and they’re afraid the child will get infected and bring it home,” Brewer said. “But right now, if a student is not sick herself, being marked absent can impact their grades and academics.”

Teachers must deal with these stresses and a variety of other issues, from covering for sick or absent colleagues and keeping often absent students on academic schedule, as well as the prepandemic issues found in all schools, like food insecurity in student homes and parental abuse, which can be exacerbated by at home learning in close quarters. For those and other reasons, mental health has become an even more important issue in schools.

Thousands of anxious New York City public school students walked out of class on Jan. 11 to demand that online classes be offered to those who wanted to stay at home. The students cited teacher absences and the fear of widespread infection from the omicron variant of COVID-19 among their reasons for wanting remote classes. Similar protests occurred in other cities across the nation, with some students threatening to boycott in-person classes over omicron.

“Students have faced immense challenges over the course of the pandemic, and many have been impacted by the pain, stress and trauma the pandemic has caused New Yorkers,” said Department of Health and Mental Hygiene spokesperson Victoria Merlino.

In addition, some schools have been reporting higher incidences of violence and acting out since students returned to in-person classes. Other schools have reported students entering school in pajama bottoms, and children displaying behavior that is typical not of their age group, but of the last age group with which they interacted during in-person classes. Mental health is also a concern for colleges across the country, where administrators fear that isolation caused by remote learning has left many students feeling depressed and even suicidal. How New York City plans to deal with such issues is not known at this time. The Adams administration and the Department of Education did not respond to numerous emails seeking comment on how the pandemic is driving mental health issues affecting the city’s school children.

But United Federation of Teachers Associate Executive Director Christine Schuch spoke to City & State about what members are seeing in the city’s community schools, schools that remain open longer than regular public schools and offer more social services. Schuch manages UFT social workers and professionals working in those schools.

“In elementary schools, students are experiencing anxiety and fear,” Schuch said. “There is the stress of walking into a school and not feeling entirely safe. Then you have the students who have experienced great loss, and a lot of disruption, as we all have, but it manifests differently with children.

“In middle schools and high schools, there is still stress and anxiety and trauma as well as a little uptick in violence and in suicidal thoughts. Some of the stresses are kind of leveling off now, but you add returning