# Improving mental health response in earthquake-prone regions: recommendations following the recent earthquake in Türkiye

## TL;DR

This paper offers a three-step mental health response system for disaster-prone areas like Türkiye, based on global expertise and lived experiences.

## Contribution

A novel multi-tiered mental health response system tailored for earthquake-prone regions, informed by lived experiences and literature.

## Key findings

- A three-step system can address immediate, short-term, and long-term mental health needs after disasters.
- Recommendations are informed by both global literature and personal experiences from earthquake-prone countries.
- The system emphasizes community-focused and sustainable mental health interventions.

## Abstract

We are members of Students’ Education, Empowerment and Development in Mental Health, a group of medical students and psychiatrists from around the globe under the Psychiatry, Medicine and Primary Care Section of the World Psychiatric Association. In this article, we put forward recommendations to help improve the mental health response in disaster-prone regions such as Türkiye. We recommend a three-step multi-tiered mental health response system that could significantly help to address the immediate, short-term and long-term mental health needs of communities directly affected by a disaster. The recommendation draws from the relevant literature and, most importantly, from our lived experiences of living in earthquake-prone countries.