ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2022
The association between COVID-19 policy responses and mental well-being: Evidence from 28 European countries.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 40 citations in OpenAlex.
- Systematic Review of the Use of the WHO-5 Well-Being Index Across Different Disease Areas.Advances in therapy · 2025Pooled it
- Changes in sleep quality and sleep disturbances in the general population from before to during the COVID-19 lockdown: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Pooled it
- Socioeconomic and sociodemographic differences in the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic and their impact on self-rated health and mental well-being: results from a cross-sectional study in Germany.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Comparative study of children's mental health outcomes in Tyrol, Austria, and South Tyrol, Italy, during the COVID-19 pandemic.Neuropsychiatrie : Klinik, Diagnostik, Therapie und Rehabilitation : Organ der Gesellschaft Osterreichischer Nervenarzte und Psychiater · 2024Article
- The impact of quality-adjusted life years on evaluating COVID-19 mitigation strategies: lessons from age-specific vaccination roll-out and variants of concern in Belgium (2020-2022).BMC public health · 2024Article
- Birth rate decline in the later phase of the COVID-19 pandemic: the role of policy interventions, vaccination programmes, and economic uncertainty.Human reproduction open · 2024Article
- Mental health in Ireland during the Covid pandemic: Evidence from two longitudinal surveys.PloS one · 2024Article
- Individual preferences, government policy, and COVID-19: A game-theoretic epidemiological analysis.Applied mathematical modelling · 2023Article
- Trajectories of Adjustment Disorder and Well-Being in Austria and Croatia during 20 Months of the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Uncertainty, Anxiety and the Post-Pandemic Economic Environment.Clinical neuropsychiatry · 2023Article
- Evolution of Youth's Mental Health and Quality of Life during the COVID-19 Pandemic in South Tyrol, Italy: Comparison of Two Representative Surveys.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Impact of vaccination and non-pharmacological interventions on COVID-19: a review of simulation modeling studies in Asia.Frontiers in public health · 2023Review
- Effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions in nine fields of activity to decrease SARS-CoV-2 transmission (Spain, September 2020-May 2021).Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Determinants of COVID-19 vaccine uptake among healthcare professionals and the general population in Cyprus: A web-based cross-sectional survey.Journal of evaluation in clinical practice · 2022Article
- The Psychological Well-Being and Civic Engagement of Polish, Croatian and Lithuanian Academic Students during COVID-19 Outbreak.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Men smoke less under the COVID-19 closure policies: The role of altruism.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This study assesses how the implementation and lifting of non-pharmaceutical policy interventions (NPIs), deployed by most governments, to curb the COVID-19 pandemic, were associated with individuals' mental well-being (MWB) across 28 European countries. This is done both for the general population and across key-groups. We analyze longitudinal data for 15,147 respondents from three waves of the Eurofound-"Living, Working and COVID-19" survey, covering the period April 2020-March 2021. MWB is measured by the WHO-5 index. Our evidence suggests that restriction on international travel, private gatherings, and contact tracing (workplace closures) were negatively (positively) associated with MWB by about, respectively, -0.63 [95% CI: -0.79 to -0.47], -0.24 [95% CI: -0.38 to -0.10], and -0.22 [95% CI: -0.36 to -0.08] (0.29 [95% CI: 0.11 to 0.48]) points. These results correspond to -3.9%, -1.5%, and -1.4% (+1.8%) changes compared to pre-pandemic levels. However, these findings mask important group-differences. Women compared to men fared worse under stay-at-home requirements, internal movement restrictions, private gatherings restrictions, public events cancellation, school closures, and workplace closures. Those residing with children below 12, compared to those who do not, fared worse under public events cancellation, school closures and workplace closures. Conversely, those living with children 12-17, compared to those who do not, fared better under internal movement restrictions and public events cancelling. Western-Europeans vis-à-vis Eastern-Europeans fared better under NPIs limiting their mobility and easing their debts, whereas they fared worse under health-related NPIs. This study provides timely evidence of the rise in inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic and offers strategies for mitigating them.
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