ArticleAnalyses of social issues and public policy : ASAP2021
How participation in Covid-19 mutual aid groups affects subjective well-being and how political identity moderates these effects.
Article in Analyses of social issues and public policy : ASAP, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed.
- Managing Student Well-Being After Social Upheaval: An Examination of Bangladeshi University Responses.Public health challenges · 2026Article
- The effect and mechanism of mutual aid on the subjective well-being of participants under the COVID-19 pandemic.BMC psychology · 2025Article
- Exploring mutual aid-based community engagement during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study of community group buying in China.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Mutual aid food sharing during the COVID-19 pandemic: case study of Tompkins County, NY.Public health nutrition · 2024Article
- The challenges of voluntary care provision for hospitalized patients with COVID-19: A qualitative study of the public volunteers' experiences.Health expectations : an international journal of public participation in health care and health policy · 2024Article
- Mental health and wellbeing outcomes of youth participation: A scoping review protocol.PloS one · 2023Article
- 'All together now': Facilitators and barriers to engagement in mutual aid during the first UK COVID-19 lockdown.PloS one · 2023Article
- Activities and challenges of volunteers in confrontation with COVID-19: A qualitative study in Iran.International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR · 2022Article
- Rehearsing post-Covid-19 citizenship: Social representations of UK Covid-19 mutual aid.The British journal of social psychology · 2022Article
- Tracking the nature and trajectory of social support in Facebook mutual aid groups during the COVID-19 pandemic.International journal of disaster risk reduction : IJDRR · 2022Article
- Double jeopardy: How lower levels of support during COVID-19 exacerbated the relationship between loneliness and distress.Frontiers in public health · 2022Article
- How participation in Covid-19 mutual aid groups affects subjective well-being and how political identity moderates these effects.Analyses of social issues and public policy : ASAP · 2021Article
- More Than a COVID-19 Response: Sustaining Mutual Aid Groups During and Beyond the Pandemic.Frontiers in psychology · 2021Article
- The amplifying effect of perceived group politicization: Effects of group perceptions and identification on anxiety and coping self-efficacy among members of UK COVID-19 mutual aid groups.Journal of community & applied social psychologyArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Mutual aid groups have flourished during the Covid-19 pandemic. However, a major challenge is sustaining such groups, which tend to decline following the initial upsurge immediately after emergencies. The present study investigates one possible motivation for continued participation: the well-being benefits associated with psychological membership of groups, as suggested by the "social cure" approach. Interviews were conducted with 11 volunteers in a mutual aid group organized by ACORN, a community union and anti-poverty campaigning organization. Through qualitative analysis, we show that participation provided well-being in different ways: positive emotional experiences, increased engagement in life, improved social relationships, and greater sense of control. Participants also reported some negative emotional experiences. While all interviewees experienced benefits from participation, those who viewed their participation through a political lens were able to experience additional benefits such as feelings of empowerment. Moreover, the benefits conferred by a shared political identity appeared to be qualitatively different from the benefits conferred by other forms of shared identity. The interview data is used to hypothesize an overall process by which participants may come to attain a political identity via mutual aid. These findings have implications for how such groups retain their members and how authorities support these groups.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.