Factors associated with county‐level mental health during the COVID‐19 pandemic

Abstract

The objective of this study is to determine county‐level factors associated with anxiety, depression, and isolation during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID‐19) pandemic. This study used daily data from 23,592,355 respondents of a nationwide Facebook‐based survey from April 2020 to July 2021, aggregated to the week‐county level to yield 212,581 observations. Mental distress prevalences were modeled using weighted linear mixed‐effects models with a county random effect. These models revealed that weekly percentages of mental distress were higher in counties with higher unemployment rates, populations, and education levels; higher percentages of females, young adults, individuals with a medical condition, and individuals very worried about their finances and COVID‐19; and lower percentages of individuals who were working outside the home, living with children, without health insurance, and Black. Anxiety peaked in April 2020, depression in October 2020, and isolation in December 2020. Therefore, United States counties experienced the mental health effects of the pandemic differently dependent upon their characteristics, and mental distress prevalence varied across time.

Factors associated with depressive symptomatology during the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico: A 2021 national survey

“…Among these, age stands out, which had shown a direct relationship with depression in previous studies ( Cerecero-García et al, 2020 ; Hernández-Vásquez et al, 2020 ). At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, a higher prevalence of depression was observed in younger people, especially in the young adult group ( Alzahrani et al, 2022 ; Lupton-Smith et al, 2022 ; Shah et al, 2021 ; Wang et al, 2020 ; Xiong et al, 2020 ). In the present study, on the other hand, the association was not significant and the prevalence of CSDS was similar in all age groups.…”

Evolution of Depression and Anxiety During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Across Demographic Groups in a Large Sample of U.S. Adults

“…Frequent feelings of depression and frequent feelings of anxiety were defined by a CTIS response of most of the time or all of the time , as used in other publications. 26 In March 2021, the wording was revised to ask participants how often they felt depressed or anxious over the last seven days instead of over the last five days , 27 motivating the dichotomization of the variables instead of using a continuous measure.…”

Mental Health Trends in India from 2020 to 2022: Association with Financial Stress, Food Insecurity, and COVID-19-related Illness Concerns

“…With its broad coverage of COVID-19-related inquiries, which includes mental health assessments, this survey stands as a key resource for the investigation of mental health trajectories across the world during the pandemic. In the context of the United States, researchers have analyzed both county-level and individuallevel data to assess the factors associated with anxiety, depression, and isolation during the pandemic (Lupton-Smith et al, 2022;Ettman et al, 2023;Kobayashi et al, 2023). Additionally, Kush et al (2022) observed a higher prevalence of anxiety symptoms among teachers compared to other professions.…”