You weren’t actually more anxious during the Covid pandemic.
Scientists say that anxiety levels among U.S. adults appear to have stayed steady during that period, with new research challenging the belief that there was a widespread spike in psychological distress.
Previous research had found a 25 percent increase in the prevalence of anxiety and depression, which the World Health Organization said was linked to feelings of loneliness and fear of infection during the pandemic.
The new research, which surveyed nearly 100,000 U.S. adults between 2011 and 2022, found that there was no prolonged spike in anxiety levels for younger or older adults.
“Our results might suggest that the mental health of U.S. adults is more resilient than public perception suggests, given the many news headlines about the U.S. currently experiencing a ‘mental health crisis,’” Noah French, a researcher at University of Virginia and an author of the new study, explained in a statement.
The pandemic was cited by Biden administration officials as worsening America’s mental health crisis in 2023, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says nearly one in four U.S. adults report having a mental illness. Some 38 percent more people had been in mental health care since the onset of the pandemic, researchers said.
The pandemic disproportionately affected the mental health of younger adults, WHO has reported. The isolating impact of school closures also resulted in anxious kids who were academically behind their peers, according to an analysis in The New York Times, and dozens of related studies.
However, the new study found that while those aged 18-25 showed significantly stronger symptoms of anxiety compared to older adults during the pandemic, young adults’ anxiety levels did not increase from 2011 to 2022 overall.
The reasons behind these observations in younger and older adults are unclear.
Other surveys have found that Americans are feeling more anxious in general. Polling data from last year found that 43 percent of U.S. adults felt more anxious than they did the previous year and in 2022, according to the American Psychiatric Association. This uptick in American anxiety stems from current events, the economy, and gun violence, the association said. And of the more than 2,200 adults surveyed, 63 percent said they were anxious about their health.
It’s also possible that worsening mental health was the reason Americans drank more alcohol during the pandemic, according to doctors. One study suggested that mothers with young children drank 300 percent more alcohol than they did before Covid.
French said that more research is needed to fully understand what happened, and cautioned against drawing firm conclusions on anxiety levels from his findings.
For one, participants skewed younger, were more educated, and had all signed up to answer the questions. That means that they might not be entirely representative of the average American.
“One of my biggest personal takeaways from this project is that there is surprisingly little high-quality research tracking the mental health of entire populations over time,” French said. “We need a lot more research in this space, and I will forever be skeptical of headlines that make strong claims about a certain mental health condition being ‘on the rise.’”
