Beyond the COVID-19 pandemics, from the Era of New normal along with advancement in education is a concurrent advancement in public health. Prevention and control programs dealing with tropical and parasitic diseases have been developed and implemented. However, even with these advances, tropical and parasitic diseases still remain a serious concern for the public health system in Thailand. The phenomenal study is to establish the database system development of mental health care for the elderly during the COVID-19 public sentiment by using a geographic information system (GIS) to create a model database system A cross-sectional observation were conducted by an elderly survey using a four-stage stratified random sampling to select 1,647 respondents aged 60 and over from the six subdistrict health promotion hospitals in four provinces, respectively. Descriptive statistics and stepwise multiple regression were used to analyze the data. Significant factors affecting mental health problems or associated with stress in the elderly during the COVID-19 period were: participation in religious activities; daily activities (ability to perform basic daily activities); social support (from family, relatives, and friends); income; and anxiety during COVID-19. All of these factors could together predict the preventive behavior against mental health problems in the elderly during the COVID-19 period. Based on the presented results, interdisciplinary healthcare teams should consider social support and access to healthcare when developing interventions for encouraging and promoting health outcomes in order to improve physical and psychological COVID-19 preventive behaviors and for the government in terms of increasing family income, particularly the oldest pension among elderly people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The crucial finding : the main mental health problem in the elderly during the COVID-19 period presented moderate levels of stress, with associated risk factors including demographic, economic, and social factors (lack of income), health and illness factors (anxiety of COVID-19), psychological factors (participation in religious activities), and psychosocial factors (social support). It supports the need for further planning for the effective psychological well-being of the elderly, which has also been echoed in other similar studies. Based on the present results, interdisciplinary healthcare teams should consider social support and access to healthcare when developing interventions for encouraging and promoting health outcomes in order to improve physical and psychological problem-preventive behaviours in the elderly during the COVID-19 pandemic and for the government in terms of increasing family income, particularly by increasing the oldest pension fee among elderly people for anticipation, even if the next pandemic will happen.

Choosak Nithikathkul, Director of Tropical Health Innovation Research Unit, Faculty of Medicine, Mahasarakham University