A systematic review and meta-analysis of longitudinal cohort studies comparing mental health before versus during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020

Resilience and mental health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States has declared insufficient sleep a "public health problem." Indeed, according to a recent CDC study, more than a third of American adults are not getting enough sleep on a regular basis. However, insufficient sleep is not exclusively a US problem, and equally concerns other industrialised countries such as the United Kingdom, Japan, Germany, or Canada. According to some evidence, the proportion of people sleeping less than the recommended hours of sleep is rising and associated with lifestyle factors related to a modern 24/7 society, such as psychosocial stress, alcohol consumption, smoking, lack of physical activity and excessive electronic media use, among others. This is alarming as insufficient sleep has been found to be associated with a range of negative health and social outcomes, including success at school and in the labour market. Over the last few decades, for example, there has been growing evidence suggesting a strong association between short sleep duration and elevated mortality risks. Given the potential adverse effects of insufficient sleep on health, well-being and productivity, the consequences of sleep-deprivation have far-reaching economic consequences. Hence, in order to raise awareness of the scale of insufficient sleep as a public-health issue, comparative quantitative figures need to be provided for policy- and decision-makers, as well as recommendations and potential solutions that can help tackling the problem.

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Why Sleep Matters-The Economic Costs of Insufficient Sleep: A Cross-Country Comparative Analysis.

Using a longitudinal dataset linking biometric and survey data from several cohorts of young adults before and during the COVID-19 pandemic ([Formula: see text]), we document large disruptions to physical activity, sleep, time use, and mental health. At the onset of the pandemic, average steps decline from 10,000 to 4,600 steps per day, sleep increases by 25 to 30 min per night, time spent socializing declines by over half to less than 30 min, and screen time more than doubles to over 5 h per day. Over the course of the pandemic from March to July 2020 the proportion of participants at risk for clinical depression ranges from 46% to 61%, up to a 90% increase in depression rates compared to the same population just prior to the pandemic. Our analyses suggest that disruption to physical activity is a leading risk factor for depression during the pandemic. However, restoration of those habits through a short-term intervention does not meaningfully improve mental well-being.

https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/118/9/e2016632118.full.pdf

Lifestyle and mental health disruptions during COVID-19.

Sunset time and the economic effects of social jetlag: evidence from US time zone borders.

Do immigrants improve the health of natives

This paper studies the effects of immigration on the allocation of occupational physical burden and work injury risks Using data for England and Wales from the Labour Force Survey (2003–2013), we find that, on average, immigration leads to a reallocation of UK-born workers towards jobs characterised by lower physical burden and injury risk The results also show important differences across skill groups Immigration reduces the average physical burden of UK-born workers with medium levels of education, but has no significant effect on those with low levels We also find that that immigration led to an improvement self-reported measures of native workers’ health These findings, together with the evidence that immigrants report lower injury rates than natives, suggest that the reallocation of tasks could reduce overall health care costs and the human and financial costs typically associated with workplace injuries

/pdf/immigration-and-the-reallocation-of-work-health-risks-1hh9jtqz9x.pdf

Osea Giuntella

Papers

Lifestyle and mental health disruptions during COVID-19.

Sunset time and the economic effects of social jetlag: evidence from US time zone borders.

Do immigrants improve the health of natives

Immigration and the reallocation of work health risks

Reason for immigration and immigrants' health.