Trajectories of health by early pandemic employment conditions

The problem:

In addition to the many health and medical challenges that arose as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, employment conditions were significantly altered. Employment disruptions have led to both short- and longer-term effects on income, unemployment, living arrangements, and time with family. The health trajectories that resulted from these employment and economic conditions are only now becoming observable, and evidence suggests that challenging employment conditions may be contributing to poorer mental and physical health. As such, the researchers in this study seek to understand whether one’s essential work status is associated with mental health outcomes both cross-sectionally and longitudinally.

The approach:

The research team’s primary data source was the Study of Adolescent to Adult Neural Development (SAND) COVID-19 Follow-up study, which examines the health, social and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on an underserved and vulnerable population of young adults who have been followed since birth (and ages 1, 3, 5, 9, and 15). As well as their primary caregivers who are entering middle age. We surveyed 840 young adults for this study.

A subsample from the SAND was also used, which includes MRI, mental health, adversity, variables that promote resilience, genetics, epigenetics, and COVID data. The study population is focused on the subset population from the SAND-COVID 2020-21 data collected from mostly mid-western cities and includes both young adult and primary care givers.

The researchers classified worker status by whether they were essential, non-essential, or unemployed.

The findings:

The researchers found that young adults had higher perceived stress and anxiety during the pandemic than their primary caregivers, but did not observe a crosssectional association (in 2020) between essential work status and perceived stress, depression or anxiety. Two years after the pandemic onset, however, researchers observed statistically significant differences in depression between young adults who were essential workers vs. those who were unemployed during the pandemic.

There were a number of effects on young adults that resulted from being an essential worker, including, but not limited to, seeing an increase in hours worked, minimizing contact with family, and having to live away from family. For these young adults in their early 20s, this time period was marked by a transition into adulthood. These results were similarly reflected by their caregivers (parents). As this transition took place during COVID, the researchers were able to see cohort effects wherein the young adult population behaved similarly despite employment type within their cohort and the caregiver population behaved similarly despite their employment type.