Background: Most asylum seekers experience stress, not only due to the reason for fleeing and their travel but also due to their compulsory stay in the asylum seeker center in the Netherlands and the asylum procedure. This often leads to self-medication and addiction which causes lower self-esteem and lower quality of life. Adverse life events, forced migration, and prolonged asylum procedures, in addition to the complexity of the acculturation process, can all contribute to higher levels of psychopathology.

Introduction

The necessary requirement of a traumatic event preceding the development of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, theoretically allows for administering preventive and early interventions in the early aftermath of such events. Machine learning models including biomedical data to forecast PTSD outcome after trauma are highly promising for detection of individuals most in need of such interventions.

A recent scandal in the Netherlands painfully underscored that sexual harassment and abuse are unfortunately still happening around the world, even after decades of advocacy on this issue and five years of #MeToo. To make progress in prevention and treatment we argue that we should address sexual violence from a public health perspective. Fruthermore, looking back on the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic was the dominant and potentially traumatic stressor affecting large populations around the world.