Bar­ba­dos will host the 69th an­nu­al health re­search con­fer­ence of the Trinidad-based Caribbean Pub­lic Health Agency (CARPHA) in May.

The May 7-9 event, will be held un­der the theme “Men­tal Health: The Hid­den Pan­dem­ic” and will bring to­geth­er re­searchers, pol­i­cy­mak­ers, and health pro­fes­sion­als from the re­gion and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

Bar­ba­dos Chief Med­ical Of­fi­cer (CMO), Dr. Ken­neth George, said that dur­ing and since the coro­n­avirus (COVID-19) pan­dem­ic, health of­fi­cials here have seen a 100 per cent in­crease in per­sons seek­ing men­tal health ser­vices, par­tic­u­lar­ly younger peo­ple.