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Pandemic’s Effect on Youth Mental Health Varied Across Different Groups
A recently published study in JAMA Network Open presents a nuanced picture of how the COVID-19 pandemic affected youth mental health: while changes were minimal overall, mental health distinctly improved for certain groups of children and adolescents.
“Our research shows that the pandemic’s impact on children varied depending on their individual characteristics, and average changes in the youth population do not fully capture these differences,” said study first author Courtney K. Blackwell, PhD, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois.
The study used data collected from the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Program over 2 periods: January 1, 2015, through March 12, 2020 (prepandemic), and March 13, 2020, through August 31, 2022 (midpandemic). Participants included 1229 youth aged 6 to 17 years from 9 ECHO cohorts in the United States. Among them, 51.7% identified as White, 31.6% as Black, 12% as multiracial, 3.3% as another race, and 9.6% as Hispanic. Some 18.7% came from households at or below 130% of the federal poverty level.
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When researchers investigated changes in mental health scores on the parent-reported Child Behavior Checklist during the pandemic, they found minor decreases in externalizing problems, anxiety, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) overall. They also found a minor increase in depression.
However, when investigators looked specifically at children with mental health problems before the pandemic, they found notable improvements across outcomes, particularly for externalizing problems such as aggression, rule-breaking, and ADHD symptoms, according to the study.
Other factors, too, were associated with changes in youth mental health. For example, Black children showed small decreases in internal distress, depressive symptoms, and ADHD symptoms compared with While children. Children from low-income families experienced decreases in depressive and ADHD symptoms, while children from high-income families had small increases in internalizing symptoms. Girls had a slight increase in externalizing behaviors compared with boys. And compared with younger children who showed no change in internalizing symptoms, teenagers increased in internalized distress and depressive symptoms.
“Perhaps most surprisingly, some children that we would have expected to fare worse during the pandemic, like those with more significant behavior problems before the pandemic, improved,” said study senior author Kaja Z. LeWinn, ScD, of the University of California School of Medicine, San Francisco, California. “It may be that, for these children, a break from school-related stressors and demands benefited their mental health.”
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