ArticlePloS one2021
Declining well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic reveals US social inequities.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Understanding mental health disparities: a comparative study of depression and anxiety among health and non-health college track students.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Understanding crisis dynamics during public health emergencies: an integrated framework of social consequences, trust, and behavioral responses.Frontiers in public health · 2026Review
- Cultural participation and life satisfaction: an investigation across different family backgrounds.PloS one · 2026Article
- Forging Online Community Among People in Recovery From Substance Use: Natural Language Processing and Deep-Learning Analysis of The Phoenix App User-Generated Data.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2025Article
- Social inequality and cultural factors impact the awareness and reaction during the cryptic transmission period of pandemic.PNAS nexus · 2025Article
- Digital Epidemiology of Prescription Drug References on X (Formerly Twitter): Neural Network Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Analyzing Reddit Forums Specific to Abortion That Yield Diverse Dialogues Pertaining to Medical Information Seeking and Personal Worldviews: Data Mining and Natural Language Processing Comparative Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Article
- Changes to Public Health Surveillance Methods Due to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Risk perceptions and behaviors concerning rural tourism and economic-political drivers of COVID-19 policy in 2020.PloS one · 2024Article
- Article
- Internet use time and subjective well-being during the COVID-19 outbreak: serial mediation of problematic internet use and self-esteem.BMC psychology · 2023Article
- Results and Methodological Implications of the Digital Epidemiology of Prescription Drug References Among Twitter Users: Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) Analyses.Journal of medical Internet research · 2023Article
- Global shocks, cascading disruptions, and (re-)connections: viewing the COVID-19 pandemic as concurrent natural experiments to understand land system dynamics.Landscape ecology · 2023Review
- Using Natural Language Processing to Explore "Dry January" Posts on Twitter: Longitudinal Infodemiology Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Assessing rigid modes of thinking in self-declared abortion ideology: natural language processing insights from an online pilot qualitative study on abortion attitudes.Pilot and feasibility studies · 2022Article
- Digital haemophilia: Insights into the use of social media for haemophilia care, research and advocacy.Haemophilia : the official journal of the World Federation of Hemophilia · 2022Article
- The Impact of the COVID-19 "Infodemic" on Well-Being: A Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2022Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic led to mental health fallout in the US; yet research about mental health and COVID-19 primarily rely on samples that may overlook variance in regional mental health. Indeed, between-city comparisons of mental health decline in the US may provide further insight into how the pandemic is disproportionately affecting at-risk groups. PURPOSE: This study leverages social media and COVID-19-city infection data to measure the longitudinal (January 22- July 31, 2020) mental health effects of the COVID-19 pandemic in 20 metropolitan areas.
methodsWe used longitudinal VADER sentiment analysis of Twitter timelines (January-July 2020) for cohorts in 20 metropolitan areas to examine mood changes over time. We then conducted simple and multivariate Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) regressions to examine the relationship between COVID-19 infection city data, population, population density, and city demographics on sentiment across those 20 cities.
resultsLongitudinal sentiment tracking showed mood declines over time. The univariate OLS regression highlighted a negative linear relationship between COVID-19 city data and online sentiment (β = -.017). Residing in predominantly white cities had a protective effect against COVID-19 driven negative mood (β = .0629, p < .001). DISCUSSION: Our results reveal that metropolitan areas with larger communities of color experienced a greater subjective well-being decline than predominantly white cities, which we attribute to clinical and socioeconomic correlates that place communities of color at greater risk of COVID-19.
conclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic is a driver of declining US mood in 20 metropolitan cities. Other factors, including social unrest and local demographics, may compound and exacerbate mental health outlook in racially diverse cities.
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