How Right Now: Supporting Mental Health for All

How Right Now (or Qué Hacer Ahora in Spanish) was developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to promote and strengthen the emotional well-being and resiliency of populations adversely affected by COVID-19-related stress, grief, and loss. Support for the campaign is provided by the CDC Foundation in partnership with CDC.

Help us celebrate World Mental Health Day

Mental Health Care for All:  Let’s Make it a Reality

Each year, the World Health Organization hosts World Mental Health Day to raise awareness of mental health issues around the world and to mobilize efforts in support of mental health. The day provides an opportunity for all stakeholders working on mental health issues to talk about their work and what more needs to be done to make mental health care a reality for people worldwide.

In celebration of World Mental Health Day, join us to learn more about this national, research-based campaign for reaching populations at high risk who are facing adverse mental health challenges due to COVID-19. How Right Now is an innovative culturally-responsive communications campaign that has already reached over 430 million people and demonstrated a positive effect on community engagement and resilience, especially for those struggling the most. 

 Learn more about How Right Now

• Mental Health and Well-being amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learnings from Qualitative and Quantitative Formative Research (Special Report)
• Mental Health and Well-being amid the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learnings from Qualitative and Quantitative Formative Research (Infographic)
• How Right Now: The role of social determinants of health as they relate to emotional well-being amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
• How right now? Supporting mental health and resilience amid COVID-19

Moderator

Silicia Lomax, MPH, is a health policy associate for Waxman Strategies in Washington, D.C., and an active member of the Global Alliance for Behavioral Health and Social Justice. In her roles, she works on projects to increase access to mental health services and to expand nutrition security in the U.S., as well as policies to decrease healthcare costs. Silicia is also the vice-president of a non-profit organization, United Against Inequities in Disease, where she develops sustainable community projects with chapters around the nation to address major health inequities. Silicia attended the University of Pennsylvania to receive her Bachelor’s in Health and Societies and Bioethics and later received her Master’s in Public Health in 2020.

Panelists

Amelia Burke-Garcia, PhD, is the program area director of digital strategy and outreach in the Public Health Department at NORC at the University of Chicago. She is a seasoned health communications professional with nearly 20 years of experience in health communication program planning, implementation, and evaluation, with specific expertise in developing and evaluating digital health communications campaigns and intervention studies. Over the course of her career, Amelia has spearheaded some of the most innovative communication programs and studies on a variety of health topics. Examples include investigating perspectives and motivations of non-vaccinating online influencers, designing a targeted social media intervention with mommy bloggers to help social media users lower their risk for breast cancer, and leveraging MeetUp groups and the Waze mobile application to move people to action around flu vaccination and HIV testing, respectively. 

Most recently, she acted as director for the award-winning How Right Now (Qué Hacer Ahora) campaign, which is aimed at increasing people’s ability to cope and be resilient amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. She is also conducting three studies that examine perceptions and beliefs related to the COVID vaccine amongst hard-to-reach populations. She is the author of the book entitled, Influencing Health: A Comprehensive Guide to Working with Online Influencers and has been named to VeryWellHealth.com’s list of 10 Modern Female Innovators Shaking Up Health Care.

Cynthia Crick, MPH, currently serves as the manager of the How Right Now campaign and special projects advisor in the Division of Population Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has led health communication projects for the U.S. Government for 25 years. During her tenure at CDC, Cynthia has directed the development, implementation, and evaluation of national communication programs at the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion and the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention. She has also worked on a variety of CDC’s emergency responses—from a communications lead on Epidemiology Task Force during the COVID-19 pandemic to the internal communications project manager for the Ebola response. Prior to joining CDC, she worked as a U.S.-based public affairs officer for Peace Corps and has served in a variety of other roles in the private sector. She received her Master’s degree from Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health in 2004.

Turquoise Sidibe, MPH, is the associate vice president of emergency response managing the CDC Foundation’s emergency response, crisis and preparedness programs. Notably, she is leading the COVID-19 response where she has the oversight of over 250 programs domestically and internationally. In her role, Turquoise leads strategic planning, partnership management, budget development, and program implementation to ensure maximum coordination of resources and efforts in emergency responses.

Prior to joining the CDC Foundation, Turquoise was selected for the Public Health Prevention Service Fellowship at CDC and completed the three-year fellowship in 2015. During her fellowship, she was awarded the Public Health Preparedness and Response Award for “Excellence in International Program Delivery” for significant accomplishments on Global Health Activities. She received her Master’s in Public Health degree in health behavior and health education from the Gillings School of Global Public Health at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.