COVID-19 had a greater effect on minority mental health, with new research indicating racial disparities in rates of depression and anxiety.
– The COVID-19 pandemic was a burden on minority mental health, according to a new study published in PLOS ONE highlighting racial disparities in mental health outcomes for Black and Hispanic patients.
Since the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, racial and ethnic minorities have been disproportionately impacted by the virus, facing higher infection rates, worse health outcomes, and higher death rates compared to White people.
However, the pandemic not only impacted people physically, but their mental well-being also suffered.
“There is a growing body of literature linking worsened mental health outcomes to the drastic disruptions in everyday life that have characterized the COVID-19 pandemic,” researchers Andrew Chan of Harvard Medical School, Tim Spector of King’s College London, et al. wrote in the study.
Widespread lockdowns forcing social isolation, in conjunction with general economic uncertainty and the emotional toll on those afflicted and their loved ones, had a negative long-term impact on mental health and well-being, researchers stated.
That said, the prevalence of depressive symptoms in the US increased more than three-fold during the COVID-19 pandemic, research showed.
The study looked to determine the effects COVID-19 had on the mental health of minorities, a topic researchers stated had not been studied extensively.
The researchers used data on 691,473 people in the United States and the United Kingdom who responded to the smartphone-based COVID Symptom Study conducted between January 23, 2021, and June 9, 2021.
Participants who were recruited through social media outreach reported their baseline demographic information and logged daily COVID-19 symptoms as well as testing results using the Zoe app.
The study findings showed that minorities were more likely to screen positive for depression and anxiety than White patients. These disparities were apparent even after controlling for personal factors such as prior mental health diagnoses and changes in leisure time activities.
In the United States, Black participants were 16 times more likely to screen positive for depression than White participants. Additionally, Hispanic participants in the US were 1.23 times more likely to screen positive for depression compared to White participants.
Similar results were also observed for Black and Asian participants in the United Kingdom.
“The early phase of COVID-19 pandemic was incredibly disruptive to everyday life,” the researchers wrote. “We found that racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. and U.K. were more likely to screen positive for depression and anxiety. This suggests a disproportionate impact and mental health burden on persons of color, which need to be considered as we reshape healthcare systems to prioritize the long-term consequences of this disease.”
Poor access to mental healthcare services due to structural inequities and systematic disinvestment within minority communities could be a reason for the disparities in mental health outcomes, the researcher stated.
Past studies have shown that structural racism and decades-old practices like redlining led to racial disparities in patient access to mental healthcare.
The 2022 study found that redlining caused nearly a 20-fold disparity in the mental healthcare workforce.
“While it may seem hard to understand how structurally racist redlining policies that were implemented nearly 100 years ago would impact access to care today, this initial analysis suggests that could be the case,” Clese Erikson, principal investigator at the Fitzhugh Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity at The George Washington University, stated publicly in regards to the 2022 study.
