Suspension of social welfare services and mental health outcomes for women during the COVID-19 pandemic in a peripheral neighborhood in São Paulo, Brazil.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Brazilian urban peripheries have been severely affected both by the spread of the virus and by social, political, and economical dynamics, raising concerns about the psychological wellbeing and mental health of the population living in these areas. The pandemic broke out in a context of reduced public spending in social and health policies as well as in a process of erosion of social rights, fostering processes of exclusion and highlighting the association between austerity, the increase in poverty and inequality as well as in health and mental health problems indicators. This article presents the results of a qualitative participatory research that investigated subjective experiences in a peripheral neighborhood of São Paulo, Brazil, aiming to understand how contextual dynamics played a role in shaping mental health experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. A multidisciplinary team of researchers worked closely with local volunteers trained to provide emotional support calls to neighbors of the community who signed up for the project. This article presents three ethnographic cases of women who had their routines strongly affected by the suspension of public and social protection services for the containment of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, leading to psychological suffering due to the increased demand of "domestic circuits of care". We argue that within a context of austerity, the pandemic was remarkably harsh in urban peripheries and, specifically, for women with caring responsibilities. In addition to highlighting the pervasive "social protection gap", the cases presented in this paper also reveals the unequal dynamics of the social reproduction work in several layers, which falls mainly on women's shoulders. The "crisis of care", proposed by gender and feminist scholars, can contribute to understanding the psychological outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic for these women.

(Re) thinking urban mental health from the periphery of São Paulo in times of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Urban mental health studies traditionally search for causal relationships between elements of the city and the prevalence of mental disorders. This paper discusses the importance of (re)thinking the 'lived urban experience' from the perspective of city residents about how the immediate environment affects their mental health and how people cope with inequalities. A participatory-action research was implemented in a peripheral area of São Paulo - Brazil, in which volunteers from the territory made phone calls to neighbours to provide emotional support during the COVID-19 pandemic. Weekly supervision meetings were held between volunteers and researchers to discuss the experiences shared by community counterparts. Narratives have shown that the lived experience in the city is mediated by multiple layers of 'urban insecurities'. These difficulties pressured people to organise and resist in face of pervasive inequalities as well as to respond to unfolding experiences of social suffering. We highlight the potential of participatory methodologies to observe the ways in which subjects face their structural issues and the suffering that emerge in these circumstances. The understanding of how these conflicts are lived at a subjective level can support studies that are wondering about the mechanisms of how social conflicts 'get under the skin'.

Beyond command and control: A rapid review of meaningful community-engaged responses to COVID-19.

Responses to COVID-19 have included top-down, command-and-control measures, laissez-faire approaches, and bottom-up, community-driven solidarity and support, reflecting long-standing contradictions around how people and populations are imagined in public health-as a 'problem' to be managed, as 'free agents' who make their own choices, or as a potential 'solution' to be engaged and empowered for comprehensive public health. In this rapid review, we examine community-engaged responses that move beyond risk communication and instead meaningfully integrate communities into decision-making and multi-sectoral action on various dimensions of the response to COVID-19. Based on a rapid, global review of 42 case studies of diverse forms of substantive community engagement in response to COVID-19, this paper identifies promising models of effective community-engaged responses and highlights the factors enabling or disabling these responses. The paper reflects on the ways in which these community-engaged responses contribute to comprehensive approaches and address social determinants and rights, within dynamics of relational power and inequality, and how they are sometimes able to take advantage of the ruptures and uncertainties of a new pandemic to refashion some of these dynamics.

Challenges for psychosocial rehabilitation services in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area: A qualitative approach.

In Portugal, a mental health reform process is in place aiming to redefine the model of service provision. In 2008, a National Mental Health Plan (NMHP) was approved to provide policy guidance over the transition period. The NMHP intended, among others, to develop community-based services, with a specific focus on rehabilitation and deinstitutionalization. This study aims to explore the perspectives of service managers of psychosocial rehabilitation services regarding the main challenges to support the community living of persons with severe mental illnesses (PWSMI) in the Lisbon Metropolitan Area (LMA). The paper also contextualises the provision of psychosocial services within the country's mental health reform process and characterises the profile of service users in socio-occupational units (SOUs) of the LMA. Semi-structured interviews were performed with all SOUs' managers of the LMA (n = 13). Information regarding service user characteristics was collected based on service records (n = 344). Interviews were analysed according to the framework methodology. The results of the interviews were triangulated using document analysis. Fieldwork took place between June and July 2016. The findings suggest that the development of the mental health reform ensured significant changes to service delivery. Community-based mental health organisations are an important actor for service provision. However, important asymmetries were identified in the provision of psychosocial care within the LMA. At the same time, family carers are perceived as responsible for ensuring a large part of the social needs of the PWSMI but there is an increasing concern with their own ageing processes. As a conclusion, it is highlighted the current inequality between services and the need to contemplate a life-course perspective that comprehends the ageing process of caregivers poses an emerging challenge for psychosocial rehabilitation. These findings are also important for other low- and middle-income countries passing through similar reforms.

Perfil das internações psiquiátricas em São Paulo: um estudo exploratório / Psychiatric hospitalization profile in São Paulo an exploratory study

Introdução: O Brasil vem passando por um processo de redirecionamento do modelo de atenção à saúde mental, que tinha o hospital psiquiátrico como principal equipamento assistencial, para um novo modelo pautado pela ampliação dos serviços comunitários, redução no número de leitos em hospitais especializados e na criação de enfermarias psiquiátricas de retaguarda em hospitais gerais. Este processo ganhou força no ano de 2001, quando foi promulgada a Lei Federal 10.216 que tornou a assistência à saúde mental no país parte de uma política nacional compatível com as premissas do Sistema Único de Saúde (SUS). Objetivo: Este trabalho analisa o perfil das internações psiquiátricas hospitalares na cidade de São Paulo no período de 2000 a 2010. Procura evidenciar se o processo de reestruturação da assistência psiquiátrica em nível hospitalar teve repercussão na utilização destes serviços e quais foram as mudanças decorrentes deste processo no âmbito municipal e intramunicipal. Métodos: Trata-se de um estudo exploratório de natureza quantitativa. Os dados desta pesquisa foram obtidos a partir do Sistema de Informações Hospitalares (SIH-SUS), e são referentes à Autorização para Internação Hospitalar (AIH). As informações sobre as internações foram organizadas em um banco de dados e processados através do programa SPSS. Foram selecionadas as informações relativas às internações de especialidade psiquiátrica e de pacientes cujo município de residência fosse São Paulo. A seguir foi realizado o georreferenciamento do CEP de residência do paciente. Resultados: Foram analisadas 153.208 internações psiquiátricas. Os resultados apontam que após uma redução inicial, seguiu-se um aumento no total de internações. Nesse processo houve a ampliação do percentual de internações realizadas em hospitais gerais e a diminuição do percentual de internações em hospitais especializados...

Introduction Brazil has been undergoing a process of reorientation of the mental health care system, which had as its main care equipment the psychiatric hospital to a new model, based on the expansion of community services, the reduction of the number of beds in specialized hospitals and in creating psychiatric wards in general hospitals. This process gained momentum in 2001 when the federal law 10,216 was passed and made the mental health care in the country part of a national policy consistent with the assumptions of the Unified Health System (SUS). Objectives This paper analyzes the profile of psychiatric hospitalizations in the city of São Paulo in the period from 2000-2010. It seeks to bring evidence if the restructuring process had repercussions in the usage of hospital services and what were the changes in access to this equipments resulting from this process in an intramunicipal level. Methods This is an exploratory study of a quantitative nature. The data used was obtained from the Hospital Information System (SIH-SUS), and refers to the Authorization for Hospitalization (AIH). The data about the admissions were organized into a database and processed using SPSS. Only the cases relating to psychiatric specialty and patients whose municipality of residence was São Paulo were selected. Then GIS technology was applied to georeference the patients ZIP code of residence. Results Were analyzed 153,208 psychiatric admissions. The results show that after a reduction in the number of psychiatric hospitalizations between 2000 and 2002, an increase in the number of hospitalizations happened. In this process there was an expansion in the percentage of hospitalizations in general hospitals and a decline in the percentage of hospitalizations in specialized hospitals. Also stresses that there was a reduction in the percentage of long-term hospitalizations and in hospitals situated in other municipalities of the state...