Covid-19, Lockdowns and Well-Being: Evidence from Google Trends

Brodeur, Abel; Clark, Andrew E.; Flèche, Sarah; Powdthavee, Nattavudh

doi:10.2139/ssrn.3596670

Cited by 97 publications

(120 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…There has been a wealth of research assessing well-being; however, as the pandemic and resulting lockdown were unanticipated, few studies have data relating to before the lockdown. Pre-lockdown data would provide a baseline comparison and would more effectively allow for the assessment of how the current pandemic and resulting restrictions have affected mental health and well-being (Brodeur et al, 2020). The current study can address this issue.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Health and Psychosocial Functioning in Older Adults Aged 70 and Over

Docherty

Haskell-Ramsay

McInnes

et al. 2021

Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine

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The COVID-19 pandemic led to a state-imposed lockdown in the UK; there are many psychosocial consequences of pandemics, with older adults potentially at an increased risk. The current study assessed psychosocial functioning in a sample of older adults in the UK with baseline data collected pre-lockdown and follow-up 12 weeks later during lockdown. Thus, allowing investigation of the effect of COVID-19 and associated lockdown on psychosocial well-being. Thirty-five older adults (Mean age = 76.06, sex = 12 males) participated in this repeated measures study. A final follow-up was then conducted post-lockdown to capture any factors that were viewed as helpful to well-being during lockdown. From pre- to during lockdown, perceived stress, well-being, depressive symptoms, mood disturbance and memory were all significantly worsened. There were significant improvements in self-reported physical health symptoms, social interaction, time spent engaging in physical activity and certain aspects of relationship quality. Follow-up showed that well-being, depression and mood were still negatively affected post-lockdown. Given the sample were all ‘healthy’ at baseline in comparison to established norms, there may be greater impairment in more vulnerable populations. Support for older populations is needed to mitigate the negative effects shown, particularly in light of the endurance of some of these effects post-lockdown.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Health and Psychosocial Functioning in Older Adults Aged 70 and Over

Docherty

Haskell-Ramsay

McInnes

et al. 2021

Gerontology and Geriatric Medicine

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…One of the consequences of quarantine is a sharp reduction in the number of social interactions, thus increasing the sense of loneliness. Brodeur et al (2021) looked at the effect of COVID-19 lockdowns on population well-being and observed that people’s mental health may have been severely affected. They found a substantial increase in the search intensity for social interactions.…”

Section: Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, once we matched the data, we adopted a regression discontinuity design (RDD) to test for the immediate (contemporaneous) structural break caused by the lockdown on economic insecurity, political trust, and social inclusion. fn12 The goal was to obtain estimates for the immediate effect of the actual break and also of the few days around each lockdown implementation, rather than compare all pre-announcement observations with all post-announcement observations, which is what the DiD results would provide ( Brodeur et al (2021) ). The lockdown dates in our analysis are the dates at which the lockdowns became effective.…”

Section: Identification Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Exploring the hidden impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of urbanization

Arın¹,

Lacomba²,

Lagos³

et al. 2022

Economics & Human Biology

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“…However, Zero-COVID strategies cannot be used indefinitely, as lockdown requires many sacrifices from residents (17). Such sacrifices include poorer mental health (18)(19), increases in loneliness because of the social isolation (20)(21)(22), and the abandonment of healthy or adoption of unhealthy behaviours to cope with that isolation. Importantly, a great concern was that lockdowns exacerbated social, economic and gender inequalities (23)(24)(25)(26)(27), harming in particular families (28).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Zero-COVID Policies: Melbourne’s 112-Day Hard Lockdown Experiment Harmed Mostly Mothers

Schurer

Atalay

Glozier

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Lockdowns were used worldwide to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV-2. We demonstrate that the 112-day hard lockdown in Melbourne, Australia, the longest among OECD jurisdictions, exclusively penalized families with young children. To identify the causal impact of lockdown, we interrogated nationally-representative longitudinal survey data and exploited quasi-experimental variation in Melbourne's lockdown, one that left other jurisdictions unaffected. Using difference-in-differences estimation, we found that, surprisingly, most vulnerable groups (the young, poor, lonely and those with previous mental health conditions) were left unscathed. However, we found mothers experienced significant, sizable declines in health and work hours, and increases in loneliness, despite feeling safer and being more active. Zero-COVID policies are not as harmful as may have been expected but came at high cost to mothers in society.

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Covid-19, Lockdowns and Well-Being: Evidence from Google Trends

Cited by 97 publications

References 13 publications

The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Health and Psychosocial Functioning in Older Adults Aged 70 and Over

The Effects of COVID-19 Lockdown on Health and Psychosocial Functioning in Older Adults Aged 70 and Over

Exploring the hidden impact of the Covid-19 pandemic: The role of urbanization

Zero-COVID Policies: Melbourne’s 112-Day Hard Lockdown Experiment Harmed Mostly Mothers

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