**5. Public health recommendations: a call for action**

A number of micro and macro level strategies can be undertaken to overcome the barriers and challenges in the road of preventing DoD. Microlevel strategies will entail activities to increase personal and social capital of at-risk individuals. Promoting healthy behaviors, and reversing biological depletion through pharmacological interventions will also be included [4, 5]. A sense of belongingness, meaning, and hope can be improved through embedding at- risk individuals in the social activities. In fact, students should be the part of discussion of improving mental health outcomes.

At macrolevel, identification of at-risk students will be critical. Identifying students with early stress symptoms can be beneficial to prevent the progression to the chronic mental disorders. School and community based psychological interventions can help alleviate the diseases of despair among college students [36, 37]. Educating parents to openly communicate with their children will help curbing this crisis [36, 37]. Control of underlying factors associated with DoD is critical, especially in the current crisis of COVID-19 pandemic. For instance, more jobs can be created for the students to alleviate their fears of financial instability during COVID-19 pandemic. Educational institutions can develop some training programs for the students to make them suitable for the competitive markets. Academic institutions need to invest more in building the mental health infrastructure to provide psychological counselling, harm reduction services, and to expand mental health treatment services to the students. Educators can play a role of gatekeeper by identifying behaviors of despair among their students. Periodic assessment of mental health of students is critical. COVID-19 pandemic is a wake-up call for us to take actions for addressing emotional, social, and psychological needs of the adolescents. Access to mental health services should not be driven by gender and race/ethnic status as healthcare is a right for all. Authors of this chapter advocate for the equitable healthcare delivery model to address the systemic inequities already prevailing across the nation.
