ArticleAddictive behaviors2022
State lockdown policies, mental health symptoms, and using substances.
Article in Addictive behaviors, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Assets and depression in U.S. adults during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2024Pooled it
- Local Clustering for Functional Data.Journal of computational and graphical statistics : a joint publication of American Statistical Association, Institute of Mathematical Statistics, Interface Foundation of North America · 2025Article
- Depression and anxiety mediate the relationship between COVID-19 stay-at-home orders and tobacco and marijuana use.PloS one · 2025Article
- Article
- Changes in self-reported cannabis use during the COVID-19 pandemic: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Psychiatric Emergencies in Los Angeles County During, and After, Initial COVID-19 Societal Restrictions: An Interrupted Time-Series Analysis.Community mental health journal · 2023Article
- Use of COVID-19 testing in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic among cohorts of people at the intersection of drug use and HIV.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2022Article
- Tracking the Impact of COVID-19 and Lockdown Policies on Public Mental Health Using Social Media: Infoveillance Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2022Article
- Substance Use and Mental Health during the First COVID-19 Lockdown in Germany: Results of a Cross-Sectional Survey.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Green exercise, mental health symptoms, and state lockdown policies: A longitudinal study.Journal of environmental psychology · 2022Article
- Polysubstance use in a community sample of Black cisgender sexual minority men and transgender women in Chicago during initial COVID-19 pandemic peak.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2022Article
- Lockdown Policies, Economic Support, and Mental Health: Evidence From the COVID-19 Pandemic in United States.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Alcohol and Cigarette Use among Adolescents and Young Adults in Austria from 2004-2020: Patterns of Change and Associations with Socioeconomic Variables.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivePrevious literature finds an increase in depressive symptoms, substance use, and suicidal ideation following the COVID-19 pandemic in the US - suicides do not appear to increase. We examine whether 1) state lockdown policies in the US precede an increase in mental health symptoms; and 2) the extent to which using substances amplifies or attenuates the relation.
methodsWe specified, as our exposure variable, the timing of state-level lockdown orders. We used, as the outcome variable, the 4-item Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-4) that measures anxiety and depression symptoms. We utilized the Understanding America Study (UAS), a nationally representative sample of 7,597 adults across 50 states in the US, surveyed biweekly between March 10, 2020 and November 11, 2020. Linear fixed effect analyses controlled for time-invariant individual factors, as well as employment status, household income, and previous mental health diagnosis.
resultsRegression results indicate an increase in PHQ-4 scores of approximately 1.70 during lockdown, relative to no lockdown (p < 0.05). Relative to no lockdown, an increase in alcohol use corresponds with a 0.08 unit decrease in PHQ-4 scores during lockdown (p < 0.05).
conclusionState lockdown policies precede greater mental health symptoms. Increases in consuming alcohol attenuates the relation between state lockdown policies and mental health symptoms. Results may portend greater addiction following the pandemic warranting further investigation into utilization of substance use treatment.
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Registered trials
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