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1. Effects of COVID-19 on Stress and Mental Health of Community College Pre-Engineering Students

   https://doi.org/10.1109/FIE56618.2022.9962570  

   Danowitz, Andrew; Beddoes, Kacey (January 2022, Frontiers in Education Annual Conference)

   This research full paper presents screening rates for mental health issues and life-stress events in engineering-focused community college students during the initial phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Specifically, it attempts to answer the following research questions: 1) What is the overall rate of various mental health conditions among engineering-focused community college students, 2) What effects has the pandemic had on baseline stress levels engineering-focused community college, and 3) What effects has the pandemic had on quality of life, such as sleep habits and financial security of engineering- focused community college students? Data for this paper was collected via survey from May–July 2020 and includes responses from 84 students at 24 community colleges. The survey itself was a compilation of several widely- used instruments for measuring overall mental health and stress levels in a population. These instruments include the Kessler-6 for psychological distress, the PHQ for anxiety, depression, and eating disorders, the PC-PTSD for PTSD-like symptoms, and the SRRS for inventorying stressful life events. Among the major findings, 32% of respondents reported a major change in financial situation, 27% reported loss of employment, and 13% reported ceasing formal schooling because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, 32% of respondents reported that the COVID-19 pandemic worsened their housing security situation, 38% reported that COVID-19 has worsened their food security situation, and 36% report that COVID-19 has decreased their ability to access instruction, course materials, or course supplies. Finally, of respondents who completed at least one mental health screening instrument, 70% screened positive for at least one potentially diagnosable condition, while only 9% reported ever receiving a mental health diagnosis. Index Terms—Community College, Mental Health, Disability, Accessibility, Equity, Inclusion, Wellness 

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2. Novel GxE effects and resilience: A case:control longitudinal study of psychosocial stress with war-affected youth

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0266509  

   Mulligan, Connie J.; Clukay, Christopher J.; Matarazzo, Anthony; Hadfield, Kristin; Nevell, Lisa; Dajani, Rana; Panter-Brick, Catherine (April 2022, PLOS ONE)

   Boon-Peng, Hoh (Ed.)

   Responses to early life adversity differ greatly across individuals. Elucidating which factors underlie this variation can help us better understand how to improve health trajectories. Here we used a case:control study of refugee and non-refugee youth, differentially exposed to war-related trauma, to investigate the effects of genetics and psychosocial environment on response to trauma. We investigated genetic variants in two genes (serotonin transporter, 5-HTT , and catechol-O-methyltransferase, COMT ) that have been implicated in response to trauma. We collected buccal samples and survey data from 417 Syrian refugee and 306 Jordanian non-refugee youth who were enrolled in a randomized controlled trial to evaluate a mental health-focused intervention. Measures of lifetime trauma exposure, resilience, and six mental health and psychosocial stress outcomes were collected at three time points: baseline, ~13 weeks, and ~48 weeks. We used multilevel models to identify gene x environment (GxE) interactions and direct effects of the genetic variants in association with the six outcome measures over time. We did not identify any interactions with trauma exposure, but we did identify GxE interactions with both genes and resilience; 1) individuals with high expression (HE) variants of 5-HTTLPR and high levels of resilience had the lowest levels of perceived stress and 2) individuals homozygous for the Val variant of COMT with high levels of resilience showed stable levels of post-traumatic stress symptoms. We also identified a direct protective effect of 5-HTTLPR HE homozygotes on perceived insecurity. Our results point to novel interactions between the protective effects of genetic variants and resilience, lending support to ideas of differential susceptibility and altered stress reactivity in a cohort of war-affected adolescents. 

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3. The unfolding COVID-19 pandemic: A probability-based, nationally representative study of mental health in the United States

   https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abd5390  

   Holman, E. Alison; Thompson, Rebecca R.; Garfin, Dana Rose; Silver, Roxane Cohen (October 2020, Science Advances)

   null (Ed.)

   The COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic is a collective stressor unfolding over time; yet, rigorous empirical studies addressing its mental health consequences among large probability-based national samples are rare. Between 18 March and 18 April 2020, as illness and death escalated in the United States, we assessed acute stress, depressive symptoms, and direct, community, and media-based exposures to COVID-19 in three consecutive representative samples from the U.S. probability-based nationally representative NORC AmeriSpeak panel across three 10-day periods (total N = 6514). Acute stress and depressive symptoms increased significantly over time as COVID-19 deaths increased across the United States. Preexisting mental and physical health diagnoses, daily COVID-19–related media exposure, conflicting COVID-19 information in media, and secondary stressors were all associated with acute stress and depressive symptoms. Results have implications for targeting public health interventions and risk communication efforts to promote community resilience as the pandemic waxes and wanes over time. 

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4. Finding benefits during collective stress: A study of health behaviors in a longitudinal representative U.S. sample during the COVID-19 era.

   https://doi.org/10.1037/hea0001394  

   Garfin, Dana Rose; Jones, Nickolas M; Holman, E Alison; Silver, Roxane Cohen (October 2024, Health Psychology)

   Objective: During the COVID-19 pandemic, unprecedented collective stressors disrupted assumptions of safety and security. Cognitive strategies like finding benefits during adversity may facilitate coping during such times of social disruption by reducing distress or motivating health protective behaviors. Methods: We explored relationships between benefit finding, collective- and individual-level adversity exposure, psychological distress, and health protective behaviors using four waves of data collected during the COVID-19 era from a longitudinal sample from the NORC AmeriSpeak panel, a representative, probability-based online panel of U.S. residents: Wave 1 (N=6,514, 3/18/2020-4/18/2020, 58.5% completion rate); Wave 2 (N=5,661, 9/24/2020-10/16/2020, 87.1% completion rate); Wave 3 (N=4,881, 11/8/2021-11/24/2021, 75.3% completion rate); and Wave 4 (N=4,859, 5/19/2022-6/16/2022, 75.1% completion rate). Results: Benefit finding was common; k-means clustering (an exploratory, data-driven approach) yielded five trajectories: Always High (15.92%), Always Low (18.13%), Always Middle (29.81%), Increasing (16.84%) and Decreasing (19.30%). Benefit finding trajectories were generally not strong correlates of emotional exhaustion, traumatic stress symptoms, global distress, and functional impairment over time. Rather, benefit finding robustly correlated with health protective behaviors relevant to COVID-19 and another viral threat (the seasonal flu): adjusting for demographics, pre-pandemic mental health, and collective- and individual-level adversity, benefit finding was positively associated with more social distancing (β=0.28, p<.001) and mask wearing (β=.21, p<.001) at Wave 2 and greater COVID-19 (OR=1.37, p<.001) and flu (OR=1.18, p<.001) vaccination at Wave 3. Conclusions: Although benefit finding was not generally associated with lower psychological distress during a collective stressor, it correlated with engagement in stressor-related health protective behaviors. Public significance statement: Finding benefits or “silver linings” during collective stress may not be associated with reduced psychological distress. However, finding benefits may promote cognitive coping strategies that encourage health protective behaviors. 

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5. Psychosocial Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Large-scale Quasi-Experimental Study on Social Media

   https://doi.org/10.2196/22600  

   Saha, Koustuv; Torous, John; Caine, Eric D; De Choudhury, Munmun (January 2020, Journal of Medical Internet Research)

   null (Ed.)

   Background The COVID-19 pandemic has caused several disruptions in personal and collective lives worldwide. The uncertainties surrounding the pandemic have also led to multifaceted mental health concerns, which can be exacerbated with precautionary measures such as social distancing and self-quarantining, as well as societal impacts such as economic downturn and job loss. Despite noting this as a “mental health tsunami”, the psychological effects of the COVID-19 crisis remain unexplored at scale. Consequently, public health stakeholders are currently limited in identifying ways to provide timely and tailored support during these circumstances. Objective Our study aims to provide insights regarding people’s psychosocial concerns during the COVID-19 pandemic by leveraging social media data. We aim to study the temporal and linguistic changes in symptomatic mental health and support expressions in the pandemic context. Methods We obtained about 60 million Twitter streaming posts originating from the United States from March 24 to May 24, 2020, and compared these with about 40 million posts from a comparable period in 2019 to attribute the effect of COVID-19 on people’s social media self-disclosure. Using these data sets, we studied people’s self-disclosure on social media in terms of symptomatic mental health concerns and expressions of support. We employed transfer learning classifiers that identified the social media language indicative of mental health outcomes (anxiety, depression, stress, and suicidal ideation) and support (emotional and informational support). We then examined the changes in psychosocial expressions over time and language, comparing the 2020 and 2019 data sets. Results We found that all of the examined psychosocial expressions have significantly increased during the COVID-19 crisis—mental health symptomatic expressions have increased by about 14%, and support expressions have increased by about 5%, both thematically related to COVID-19. We also observed a steady decline and eventual plateauing in these expressions during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may have been due to habituation or due to supportive policy measures enacted during this period. Our language analyses highlighted that people express concerns that are specific to and contextually related to the COVID-19 crisis. Conclusions We studied the psychosocial effects of the COVID-19 crisis by using social media data from 2020, finding that people’s mental health symptomatic and support expressions significantly increased during the COVID-19 period as compared to similar data from 2019. However, this effect gradually lessened over time, suggesting that people adapted to the circumstances and their “new normal.” Our linguistic analyses revealed that people expressed mental health concerns regarding personal and professional challenges, health care and precautionary measures, and pandemic-related awareness. This study shows the potential to provide insights to mental health care and stakeholders and policy makers in planning and implementing measures to mitigate mental health risks amid the health crisis. 

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