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'.