The mental health impact of the pandemic was so severe that it prompted a “second midlife crisis” for the over-50s, with women worst affected.
A study has found that just before the second national lockdown began, those born in Britain in 1958 and 1970 were experiencing higher levels of psychological distress, on average, than they had ever experienced in adulthood before, surpassing previous peaks in their early 40s.
Data collected over four decades from more than 16,000 British-born adults, which was analyzed by academics from University College London and King’s College London, also found that those born in 1946 had similar levels of psychological distress to their previous midlife peak in their early 50s.
Graphic: TT
This peak of anxiety during the first year of the pandemic was higher for women than men across all age groups, widening the already substantial gender inequalities in mental health that existed before the pandemic.
“Most of the studies we analyzed propose that this is due to a totally different share of the domestic and caring responsibilities during lockdown,” said Dr Dario Moreno-Agostino, lead author of the report.
“An increase in gender-based violence and abuse, as well as additional financial constraints, are also suggested because there’s evidence showing that women were in more precarious situations than men: for instance, from the work point of view, more care workers — typically women — were exposed to more difficulties than other professions,” he added.
Photo: EPA-EFE
This unforeseen second midlife mental health crisis may accelerate and exacerbate the onset and occurrence of chronic mental health and health difficulties, increasing pressures on the NHS, the study suggests.
“There is the question of resilience, but we know that anxiety and depression are the top leading causes of disease worldwide,” said Moreno-Agostino. “Those mental health problems are closely linked to numerous physical health problems — right up to and including increased morbidity.”
He added: “The fact that we are observing an unexpected new peak of the very mental health problems that can lead to these long-term trajectories is deeply concerning.”
The study contradicts a recent study by McGill University researchers in Canada, which found COVID-19 may not have taken as great a toll on the mental health of most people as earlier research indicated.
That research, based on a review of 137 studies from around the world, said some of the public narrative around the mental health impacts of COVID-19 were based on “poor-quality studies and anecdotes,” which became “self-fulfilling prophecies,” adding that there was a need for more “rigorous science.”
Along with other experts, Moreno-Agostino disputed these findings. He warned that McGill’s “worldwide” approach could not accurately assess the impact of the pandemic on individual groups such as children, women and people with low incomes or pre-existing mental health problems in specific countries.
Even the McGill research, however, acknowledged that women had experienced worsening anxiety, depression or general mental health symptoms during the pandemic. That study also pointed to causes including juggling more family responsibilities, careers in health or social care, and domestic abuse.
Other robust studies have reached different conclusions to the McGill paper, suggesting that the mental health impact of the pandemic has been severe.
In 2021, researchers at the University of Queensland found that anxiety and depression around the world had increased dramatically in 2020. In April 2021, the Royal College of Psychiatrists observed a sharp rise in mental ill health. In February last year, NHS leaders warned of a “second pandemic” of depression, anxiety, psychosis and eating disorders.
But Prof Peter Tyrer, emeritus professor in community psychiatry at Imperial College London, stressed that the McGill work was “of good quality and reflects much of what we now know.”
He agreed with the researchers’ conclusion that the pandemic had a similar positive effect on resilience to wars because “social cohesion, despite the handicaps of lockdown and social distancing, improves when there is a common enemy.”
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday delivered an address marking the first anniversary of his presidency. In the speech, Lai affirmed Taiwan’s global role in technology, trade and security. He announced economic and national security initiatives, and emphasized democratic values and cross-party cooperation. The following is the full text of his speech: Yesterday, outside of Beida Elementary School in New Taipei City’s Sanxia District (三峽), there was a major traffic accident that, sadly, claimed several lives and resulted in multiple injuries. The Executive Yuan immediately formed a task force, and last night I personally visited the victims in hospital. Central government agencies and the
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
RSS