Mental Health, Material Possessions, and Social Capital During COVID-19: A Study of the United States Urban Working-Age Population

Haobin Fan (), Xuanyi Nie () and Sarah Wilson ()
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Haobin Fan: Fudan University, The Development Research Center of Shanghai Municipal People’s Government
Xuanyi Nie: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Department of Architecture, National University of Singapore
Sarah Wilson: Clemson University

Applied Research in Quality of Life, 2023, vol. 18, issue 1, No 24, 599 pages

Abstract: Abstract This study evaluates the associations between the urban working-age population’s mental health, material possession, and social capital during the COVID-19 pandemic. The specific stressors examined in this empirical analysis are income level, food insecurity, and virtual psychological support. This paper further examines the differences across the employed and unemployed population groups. We obtained data from the COVID-19 Household Impact Survey and constructed four measures of mental health conditions: Nervous, Depressed, Lonely, and Hopeless. Our empirical analyses use an ordinal regression model that takes both time and regional factors into consideration to control for potential time effects and time-invariant confounders that only vary between regions. For the employed group, the main results suggest that lower income and food insecurity is correlated with a higher frequency of mental health symptoms, while virtual psychological support predicts a better mental health status. For the unemployed group, food insecurity is negatively associated with mental health, and virtual psychological might help alleviate nervousness and depression.

Keywords: Food Insecurity; Income Level; Virtual Psychological Support; Mental Health; Urban Population; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1007/s11482-022-10093-5

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