Clinical Psychological Science’s Call to Action in the Time of COVID-19

COVID-19 presents humanity with one of the greatest health and economic crises of the 21st Century. Because COVID-19 has already begun to precipitate a huge increase in mental health problems, we believe that clinical science must also play a leadership role in guiding a national response to this secondary crisis. In this article, we explain why COVID-19 is a game-changer, as a unique, compounding, multi-dimensional stressor that will create a vast need for intervention, and necessitate new paradigms for mental health service delivery and training. We highlight the most urgent challenge areas for clinical science, including managing potential spikes in depression, anxiety, and suicide, and address the unique COVID-19-related needs across the lifespan and the challenges that COVID-19 places on families and relationships. Clinical science also will need to address the mental health of medical care workers, mitigate health disparities, and address stigma among the most vulnerable as the pandemic unfolds. For each challenge area, we suggest research directions, clinical approaches, and policy issues that need to be considered. We then discuss how to enable multi-level deployment of potential solutions and how clinical science must itself adapt to identify and deliver these solutions. We conclude by highlighting new areas for clinical science discovery and additional funding needs. Advances in clinical science implementation—propelled by COVID-19—will likely endure long beyond the pandemic.