Psychology and Covid-19 in the Americas

This book is the first of two volumes that bring together the works presented at the congress "Contributions of Psychology to COVID-19", organized by the Interamerican Society of Psychology in 2020. This was one of the first virtual international meetings on psychology and COVID-19 in the world and brought together researchers and professionals from South, Central and North America in a single online event. The content of both volumes includes many of the first issues addressed by researchers, scholars, and practitioners across the Americas at the start of the pandemic - before vaccines, before knowledge of treatment and impact, before our worlds and daily lives were forever changed. Chapters in the first volume focus on the impacts of the pandemic in mental health, social and family dynamics, educational processes and the work of health professionals. Chapters in the second volume are dedicated to studies addressing the impacts of the pandemic in vulnerable populations; proposals of psychological interventions to deal with the distress caused by COVID-19; strategies of coping, resilience and adaptation; and the development of psychological instruments of measurement and assessments during the pandemic. The content of these two volumes marks a baseline for the collective work initiated by psychologists who came together to answer the call to combat the pandemic across the Americas. In that sense, both volumes are truly a "snapshot in time" that could help us assess in the future how much progress we have made to apply psychology to the pressing demands of our time.

Nelson Portillo is the Interamerican Society of Psychology's Vice-President for North America and an applied social psychologist at the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center (TIOBEC) in Boston, MA, USA.Melissa L. Morgan is the Interamerican Society of Psychology's Executive Secretary for North America and Professor at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, University of California Santa Barbara, CA, USA.Miguel Gallegos is the Interamerican Society of Psychology's Vice-President for South America and a researcher at the Pontifical Catholic University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research, Argentina. He is also Professor at the Department of Psychology, National University of Rosario, Argentina.