skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Mapping Emotions
The COVID-19 pandemic brought unexpected changes across the globe to nearly all aspects of life. Activities such as shopping, traveling, and school, all considered routine aspects of life, suddenly took on a new level of risk. Approximately 1.6 billion students across the world had their schooling experiences interrupted during this global event.1 Matthew Stroup, a high school AP Psychology teacher, was dealing with these unexpected changes, but he also decided to use this disruption as a teaching moment. Mr. Stoup understood that sheltering in place and the resulting social isolation increased stress and anxiety among many families.2 During the 2020-21 school year, approximately 71% of all students were receiving either all or some of their schooling virtually.3 Mr. Stroup observed the effect of this unpredictable learning environment on his students’ learning and the toll it was taking on their relationships with peers, teachers, and family. According to the American Psychological Association, 81% of teens experienced a degradation in their mental health between Spring of 2020 and into the end of the year.4 The idea for the activity described in this article sprang from a class discussion on the effect of social isolation and travel hesitancy on mental health.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1949393
PAR ID:
10510013
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
National Council for the Social Studies
Date Published:
Journal Name:
Social education
Volume:
87
Issue:
2
ISSN:
0037-7724
Page Range / eLocation ID:
119-123
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
GIS, high school, psychology, geospatial understanding
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: 219KB Other: pdf
Size(s):
219KB
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Gardner, Grant Ean (Ed.)
    Graduate students are more than six times as likely to experience depression compared with the general population. However, few studies have examined how graduate school specifically affects depression. In this qualitative interview study of 50 life sciences PhD students from 28 institutions, we examined how research and teaching affect depression in PhD students and how depression in turn affects students’ experiences teaching and researching. Using inductive coding, we identified factors that either positively or negatively affected student depression. Graduate students more commonly mentioned factors related to research that negatively affected their depression and factors related to teaching that positively affected their depression. We identified four overarching aspects of graduate school that influenced student depression: the amount of structure in teaching and research, positive and negative reinforcement, success and failure, and social support and isolation. Graduate students reported that depression had an exclusively negative effect on their research, primarily hindering their motivation and self-confidence, but that it helped them to be more compassionate teachers. This work pinpoints specific aspects of graduate school that PhD programs can target to improve mental health among life sciences graduate students. 
    more » « less
  2. 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 
    more » « less
  3. 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. 
    more » « less
  4. The early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States caused unprecedented disruption to engineering students and society-at-large. Residential students suddenly found themselves forced off-campus and into a new regime of online learning. On top of this, students faced pandemic related uncertainty about their health and the health of their loved ones, restrictions on social life, and the privations of a stuttering economy. It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic the engineering student population saw large increases in incidences of depression and other psychological conditions. While COVID-19 continues to be a concern, many of the restrictions and precautions associated with the early outbreak have been relaxed. Most engineering programs are back to in person learning, and strict COVID-testing regimes, mask mandates, and limits on large public gatherings have been largely phased out. With academia and society slowly adjusting to this “new normal,” it is important to know whether and to what extent mental health of engineering students has changed over the course of the pandemic. This work explores this question by analyzing longitudinal data collected at four times from 2019-2021. We analyze how the prevalence of different conditions changed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whether they have returned to pre-pandemic levels. Among other results, we found statistically significant increases were observed in total depressive disorders between our initial sample (Fall 2019) and a sample taken immediately post-COVID (Spring 2020). While measured rates of depression decreased between Spring 2020 and Fall 2021, it was not statistically significant, potentially indicating that the student population is still recovering on this metric. Conversely our data shows a statistically significant drop in moderate-to-major psychological distress between our Fall 2019 pre-pandemic sampling and our Fall 2021 post-pandemic sampling indicating, potentially indicating an improvement in overall mental health. Breaking the data down by gender, no significant changes were observed across any measure during the four sample periods for women respondents. Men, however, showed a significant increase in depressive disorders from Fall 2019 to Spring 2020; and a significant decrease in depressive disorders from Spring 2020 to Fall 2021. 
    more » « less
  5. Introduction Widespread problems of psychological distress have been observed in many countries following the outbreak of COVID-19, including Australia. What is lacking from current scholarship is a national-scale assessment that tracks the shifts in mental health during the pandemic timeline and across geographic contexts. Methods Drawing on 244 406 geotagged tweets in Australia from 1 January 2020 to 31 May 2021, we employed machine learning and spatial mapping techniques to classify, measure and map changes in the Australian public’s mental health signals, and track their change across the different phases of the pandemic in eight Australian capital cities. Results Australians’ mental health signals, quantified by sentiment scores, have a shift from pessimistic (early pandemic) to optimistic (middle pandemic), reflected by a 174.1% (95% CI 154.8 to 194.5) increase in sentiment scores. However, the signals progressively recessed towards a more pessimistic outlook (later pandemic) with a decrease in sentiment scores by 48.8% (95% CI 34.7 to 64.9). Such changes in mental health signals vary across capital cities. Conclusion We set out a novel empirical framework using social media to systematically classify, measure, map and track the mental health of a nation. Our approach is designed in a manner that can readily be augmented into an ongoing monitoring capacity and extended to other nations. Tracking locales where people are displaying elevated levels of pessimistic mental health signals provide important information for the smart deployment of finite mental health services. This is especially critical in a time of crisis during which resources are stretched beyond normal bounds. 
    more » « less