Wellness in the USA, Part III: Mental Health
What were the mental health reactions to the COVID-19 pandemic in America?
In Part III of our series, we delve deeper into Mental Health, a key Public Health concern in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. In our dataset, we analysed online conversations and mentions to isolate and categorise references to mental health disorders. We found that Suicide, Depression and Anxiety were the most-discussed categories during the analysis period (January to March 2021). However, as we mentioned in Part II, the context of these discussions is indicative of their orientation (for example, Suicide could be mentioned in a Prevention-focused context). To further streamline our contextual analysis, we classified the data by day of the week.
Source: Sabina Andreas, Medium.
The consequences of COVID-19 for mental health have been dire, particularly for adolescents and young adults, who have faced large disruptions to their education and living situations and may suffer lifelong economic and emotional impacts.Lifestyle disruptions occurred alongside stark declines in mental health. The frequency of symptoms of depression, such as helplessness or loneliness, increased by over 60% at the onset of the pandemic. Lockdowns and curfew orders broke down socio-cultural relations in fundamental ways worldwide: people couldn’t meet friends and family, escape home for a breath of fresh air or break the monotony with exercise. These circumstances adversely affected the mental health of entire populations, with vulnerable populations such as migrant groups affected particularly severely. In India, for example, the incredible mismanagament of the mobility of migrant populations caused enormous trauma to those in unfamiliar surroundings, prompting the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare to issue a brief on their ‘psychosocial vulnerability’.
Before we take a look at our mental health data, another key observation: as health systems worldwide were overburdened, mental health services were unable to keep up. This meant that even as COVID-19 slipped in and out of waves, mental health disorders could not be diagnosed and treated on an equal footing. As an article in the International Journal of Mental Health Systems notes, ‘There are legitimate concerns that an epidemic of mental illness could actually occur in the midst of the current COVID-19 pandemic and affect all generations and all majority and minority groups–albeit diferently’.
Here’s our data dive into mental health disorders from the Wellness in the USA Dataset:
Source: Internal Data Analysis.
Suicide, Depression and Anxiety were the most frequently mentioned mental health disorders during the analysis period. While the former two categories were mentioned most on Mondays, Anxiety was mentioned most on Tuesdays. Although the reasons behind this are unclear, these insights could help inform policy actions and interventions- a direct benefit of Ripple’s analytical capabilities.
Before we generated the data, we were expecting Anxiety to be the dominant mental health disorder mentioned on social media, especially given the use of ‘anxiety’ both as a general and clinical term. We were surprised to observe the mention volume for ‘Suicide’, which appeared to point towards more serious ramifications. Nonetheless, mention volume is not indicative of the mention orientation- ‘Suicide’ could thus be linked to notifications on prevention hotlines or exhortations to get in touch with a loved one rather than suicidal intentions.
Similarly, the high mention volume for Depression is also likely indicative of a comparable mix of orientations. Once more, it is unclear why it is mentioned unusually frequently on Sundays. The advantage of stratifying otherwise unstructured data in this manner is that it is response-oriented. It is not strictly necessary to know why Suicide is mentioned on a particular day of the week, but knowing that it is could help facilitate targeted outreach measures and reinforcement of mental health infrastructure.
Although mention volumes drop off steeply after the three main disorders, the prevalence of Stress and PTSD amongst these categories merits attention. In several cases, people may not know how to articulate their mental health status, so even generic markers such as ‘Stress’ could be indicative of deeper issues. Evidently, mention volumes would also differ based on whether the demographic in question is known to engage in conversations around mental health and the existence of adequate infrastructure. All of this information points to the critical need to address the ‘second pandemic’ and allow populations to rebound both physically and mentally.
In Part IV of the series, we look at a phenomenon that came up partially in response to the mental health crisis: the rise of Wellness apps. Stay tuned!
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