Inaction in the face of climate change and other dramatic perspectives (such as the collapse of states, weapons of mass destruction or the lack of control of technological advances) were the main concerns long term of humanity a year ago. According to the Global Risks Report issued annually by the Davos World Economic Forum, in this 2022 the prospects that darken the future continue to focus on the number one threat to humanity, the Environmental crisis. And, after the disappointment of Edinburgh and the postponement of the climate priority in the face of the challenge of coronavirus and of the Economic recovery, the feeling is growing that there is a lack of strong answers to its various causes and derived consequences – the scarcity of natural resources, the challenges of adverse meteorological phenomena, the loss of biodiversity – and all that this entails, also, of crisis and division. Social. The analysis of the long-term risks indicates, on the one hand, a real concern and the need to urgently put in place mechanisms that try to mitigate the dramatic consequences in the future.
In another sense, the report also warns of immediacy, of the most severe and daily problems and of the emergence of new concerns. To the usual ones related to the economy (the digital divide and social fragmentation, the debt crisis or the bursting of the real estate asset bubble) are added others that respond to the strict present, as is the case of the health situation and infectious diseases, which were of the utmost concern in 2021.
But in 2022 a new concern has arisen, which was already palpable a year ago but now appears in all its magnitude as one of the prevailing unrest. It is that of mental health, which occupies the sixth position in the short term, when it did not even appear previously in the scales. It is true, however, that in 2021 the youth group was cited as a cause for unease, “because they are facing a global crisis for the second time in a generation” and because young people “may lose any opportunity in the next decade.” . The enormous impact of the crisis caused by the pandemic, beyond the health emergency, translates into restlessness, restlessness about the future, and somatization of anxiety produced by a state of things that makes us live in precarious conditions, pending a solution that is not yet in sight. What at first was classified as acute stress in the early stages of confinement has been leading to stages of chronification of mental illness, with a high incidence among the youngest. Psychiatric emergencies have increased by 47% in relation to the pre-pandemic stage and the number of suicide attempts. In Spain as a whole, almost 4,000 deaths from this cause have been computed, with a rate of 8.3 per 100,000 inhabitants.
Mental health, which was perceived as a side issue in the medical environment, has become a problem of the first order. That is why the Government has presented the Mental Health Strategy plan 2022-2026 to make it the “epicenter of health policies” with an initial allocation of 100 million euros until 2023. Long-term concerns are tangible and threatening , and are, at the same time, generators of short-term anxiety, in a perception of reality that can induce personal depression in the face of a collective future of indecision and fear.
Reference-www.elperiodico.com