The Effects of the Pandemic on Mental Health

Abstract

This chapter presents an evaluation of the literature on the effect of the pandemic on mental health. It draws mainly on the existing economics literature and presents the state of the art of the COVID-19 effect on mental health. While paying particular attention to how the deterioration of mental health evolved over time and across countries, this chapter also considers variation of mental health across individual demographic characteristics as well as different circumstances through which mental health has been affected. Moreover, it provides a general assessment of the methodological aspects of various studies, by discussing the sample and data used, measures of mental health as well as causality issues. Overall, researchers for various countries around the world adopting different measures of mental health, often non-comparable samples and different methodologies document consistently that the level of mental health has been deteriorated during the pandemic, with the negative effect of the lockdown on mental health being evident in the early stage of the pandemic and on the whole population. Findings point out to a high degree of heterogeneity within demographic groups.

Citation

Rienzo, C. (2022), "The Effects of the Pandemic on Mental Health", Baltagi, B.H., Moscone, F. and Tosetti, E. (Ed.) The Economics of COVID-19 (Contributions to Economic Analysis, Vol. 296), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 117-141. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0573-855520220000296010