Moreno Agostino, Dario;
Woodhead, Charlotte;
Ploubidis, George B;
Das-Munshi, Jayati;
(2023)
A quantitative approach to the intersectional study of mental health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK young adults.
Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology
10.1007/s00127-023-02424-0.
(In press).
Preview |
Text (Published version)
s00127-023-02424-0.pdf Download (888kB) | Preview |
Preview |
Text
Intersectional inequalities in mental health - Supplementary material.pdf - Supplemental Material Download (2MB) | Preview |
Abstract
Purpose: Mental health inequalities across social identities/positions during the COVID-19 pandemic have been mostly reported independently from each other or in a limited way (e.g., at the intersection between age and sex or gender). We aim to provide an inclusive socio-demographic mapping of different mental health measures in the population using quantitative methods that are consistent with an intersectional perspective. Methods: Data included 8,588 participants from two British cohorts (born in 1990 and 2000–2002, respectively), collected in February/March 2021 (during the third UK nationwide lockdown). Measures of anxiety and depressive symptomatology, loneliness, and life satisfaction were analysed using Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) models. Results: We found evidence of large mental health inequalities across intersectional strata. Large proportions of those inequalities were accounted for by the additive effects of the variables used to define the intersections, with some of the largest gaps associated with sexual orientation (with sexual minority groups showing substantially worse outcomes). Additional inequalities were found by cohort/generation, birth sex, racial/ethnic groups, and socioeconomic position. Intersectional effects were observed mostly in intersections defined by combinations of privileged and marginalised social identities/positions (e.g., lower-than-expected life satisfaction in South Asian men in their thirties from a sexual minority and a disadvantaged childhood social class). Conclusion: We found substantial inequalities largely cutting across intersectional strata defined by multiple co-constituting social identities/positions. The large gaps found by sexual orientation extend the existing evidence that sexual minority groups were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Study implications and limitations are discussed.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | A quantitative approach to the intersectional study of mental health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK young adults |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s00127-023-02424-0 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.1007/s00127-023-02424-0 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Education > UCL Institute of Education > IOE - Social Research Institute |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10163162 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
