The Covid‐19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the United Kingdom: An update

Gao, Xiaoying; Davillas, Apostolos; Jones, Andrew M.

doi:10.1002/hec.4480

Cited by 10 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…The added stress of taking on multiple roles simultaneously may have been a contributing factor in the increased poor mental health among women. The results demonstrate that the effects of the pandemic were not equal, because some groups experienced a disproportionate decrease in their mental health, corroborating findings from earlier studies (12,13,16).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

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Health behaviors and subsequent mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal analysis of adults in the UK

Jonsson

Taylor‐Robinson

Straatmann

et al. 2023

Front. Public Health

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IntroductionPublic health mitigation policies aimed at slowing the spread of COVID-19 led to an increase in mental health problems (MHPs). This study examines the association between multiple pre-pandemic health behaviors and MHPs prior to, and during, the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsWe analyzed a representative population sample of 11,256 adults (aged 20–65 years) from Understanding Society—The UK Household Longitudinal Study. Baseline data from participants interviewed in 2017/2019 (wave 9) were linked to web surveys conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used latent class analysis (LCA) to identify mutually exclusive health behavior (physical activity, alcohol consumption, eating habits and smoking tobacco) clusters by gender, and examined the sociodemographic correlates of each cluster. We assessed how pre-pandemic latent classes of health behaviors were associated with changes in MHPs during the pandemic using fixed effects regression models.ResultsThree health behavior clusters were identified: positive (33%), moderate (24%), and high risk (43%), where similar behaviors clustered within individuals and sociodemographic circumstances. In particular, gender, age, migrant status and ethnicity were found to have strong associations with each cluster. Our results also demonstrated a clear association in MHPs with health behaviors both prior to, and during the pandemic. There were significant increases in MHPs between 2017/2019 and January 2021, with fluctuations coinciding with changes in public health mitigation policies. Assessments across the three clusters showed about 25.2%, 16.9%, and 0.7% increases in MHPs in the positive, moderate and high risk health behavior clusters, respectively.DiscussionThis study shows that pre-pandemic health behaviors were significantly associated with mental health before and during the pandemic. Holistic policy interventions and promotions targeting multiple health behaviors may be an effective strategy to improve mental health in the pandemic recovery period.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…The COVID-19 pandemic has had ongoing impacts on both health behaviors and mental health (8,(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19). Public health mitigation policies introduced during the course of pandemic included social distancing regulations, such as lockdowns restricting people's movement.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health behaviors and subsequent mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal analysis of adults in the UK

Jonsson

Taylor‐Robinson

Straatmann

et al. 2023

Front. Public Health

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“…These studies showed no changes in educational differences in the prevalence of psychological distress during the first six months of the pandemic (Davillas and Jones 2021 ; Pierce et al 2021 ). Gao et al ( 2021 ) studied mental wellbeing of the general working population in the pre-pandemic situation up to 1 year into the pandemic. They showed that mental wellbeing decreased during strict lockdowns and COVID-19 peaks but also improved between these COVID-19 peaks.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Educational inequalities in self-rated health and emotional exhaustion among workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal study

Hulsegge

Eekhout

Ven

et al. 2022

Int Arch Occup Environ Health

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Objective This study aimed to investigate trends in educational inequalities in poor health and emotional exhaustion during the pandemic among workers, and differences in trends between men and women. Methods Five waves (2019–2021) from the longitudinal study ‘the Netherlands Working Conditions Survey COVID-19 study’ were used (response rates: 32–38%). Generalized logistic mixed models were used to estimate the changes in absolute and relative educational inequalities in poor health and emotional exhaustion for all workers (n = 12,479) and for men and women, separately. Results Low and intermediate educated workers reported more often poor health (OR 2.54; 95% CI 1.71–3.77 and OR 2.09; 95% CI 1.68–2.61, respectively) than high educated workers. Intermediate educated women (OR 0.49; 95% CI 0.37–0.64) reported less emotional exhaustion than high educated women, but no differences were observed among men. The prevalence of poor health first decreased across all educational levels until March 2021, and bounced back in November 2021. A similar pattern was found for emotional exhaustion, but for low and intermediate educated workers only. Relative educational inequalities in poor health reduced among men during the pandemic, and absolute differences decreased among men and women by 2.4–2.6%. Relative educational inequalities in emotional exhaustion widened among men only. Absolute differences in emotional exhaustion first increased among both men and women, but narrowed between the last two waves. Discussion Socioeconomic inequalities for poor self-rated health remained but narrowed in relative and absolute terms during the pandemic. With regard to emotional exhaustion, socioeconomic inequalities returned to pre-COVID-19 levels at the end of 2021.

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“…Recently, a few studies have examined the distributions of health status (health inequality) and socioeconomic position (socioeconomic inequality) as well as the strengths of association between these two phenomena during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequality of perceived mental health seems to be increased during the peak periods of the COVID-19 pandemic [24]. On the contrary, the relative socioeconomic inequality did not increase [24] or became larger [25] during the COVID-19 pandemic era.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

“…Inequality of perceived mental health seems to be increased during the peak periods of the COVID-19 pandemic [24]. On the contrary, the relative socioeconomic inequality did not increase [24] or became larger [25] during the COVID-19 pandemic era. Moreover, the magnitude of the impact of socioeconomic instability during the COVID-19 pandemic on perceived mental health varies with comorbid physical disease [26], demographics of age (> 45 years old [27] or < 26 years old [26]) and sex (women) [27], in addition to the socioeconomic position [27,28] of lower household income [25,27,[29][30][31], lower educational attainment [27,29,30], losing a job or becoming partially-employed [26,30], housing disruptions [26] or renting housing [31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 87%

Stronger association of perceived health with socio-economic inequality during COVID-19 pandemic than pre-pandemic era

et al. 2022

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Objective:The COVID-19 pandemic has changed peoples' routine of daily living and posed major risks to global health and economy. Few studies have examined differential impacts of economic factors on health during pandemic compared to pre-pandemic. We aimed to compare the strength of associations between perceived health and socioeconomic position (household income, educational attainment, and employment) estimated before and during the pandemic.Methods: Two waves of nationwide survey [on 2018(T1;n = 1200) and 2021(T2;n = 1000)] were done for 2200 community adults. A balanced distribution of confounders (demographics and socioeconomic position) were achieved across the T2 and T1 by use of the inverse probability of treatment weighting. Distributions of perceived health [= (excellent or very good)/(bad, fair, or good)] for physical-mental-social-spiritual subdomains were compared between T1 and T2. Odds of bad/fair/good health for demographics and socioeconomic position were obtained by univariate logistic regression. Adjusted odds (aOR) of bad/fair/good health in lower household income(< 3000 U.S. dollars/ month) were retrieved using the multiple hierarchical logistic regression models of T1 and T2.Results: Perceived health of excellent/very good at T2 was higher than T1 for physical(T1 = 36.05%, T2 = 39.13%; P = 0.04), but were lower for mental(T1 = 38.71%, T2 = 35.17%; P = 0.01) and social(T1 = 42.48%, T2 = 35.17%; P < 0.001) subdomains. Odds of bad/fair/good health were significantly increased at T2 than T1 for household income (physical-mental-social; all Ps < 0.001) and educational attainment (social; P = 0.04) but not for employment (all Ps > 0.05). AORs of bad/fair/good health in lower household income were stronger in T2 than T1, for mental [aOR (95% CI) = 2. 15(1.68-2.77) in T2, 1.33(1.06-1.68) in T1; aOR difference = 0.82(P < 0.001)], physical [aOR (95% CI) = 2.64(2. 05-3.41) in T2, 1.50(1.18-1.90) in T1; aOR difference = 1.14(P < 0.001)] and social [aOR (95% CI) = 2.15(1.68-2.77) in T2, 1.33(1.06-1.68) in T1; aOR difference = 0.35(P = 0.049)] subdomains.Conclusions: Risks of perceived health worsening for mental and social subdomains in people with lower monthly household income or lower educational attainment became stronger during the COVID-19 pandemic compared to

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The Covid‐19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the United Kingdom: An update

Abstract: This paper extends earlier on socioeconomic inequality in mental health, measured by the General Health Questionnaire, to include the second national lockdown up to March 2021.

Cited by 10 publications

References 17 publications

Health behaviors and subsequent mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal analysis of adults in the UK

Health behaviors and subsequent mental health problems during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal analysis of adults in the UK

Educational inequalities in self-rated health and emotional exhaustion among workers during the COVID-19 pandemic: a longitudinal study

Stronger association of perceived health with socio-economic inequality during COVID-19 pandemic than pre-pandemic era

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