ArticleSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2024
A quantitative approach to the intersectional study of mental health inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic in UK young adults.
Article in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2024. 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.
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, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- What works for whom: a systematic review of inequalities in inclusion and effectiveness of social interventions for mental ill- health.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Pooled it
- Health inequalities among non-lesbian, gay and bisexual sexual minority adolescents: Findings from a national UK cross-sectional study.BMC global and public health · 2026Article
- Intersectional inequalities in childhood maltreatment and adolescent emotional problems in England: a random-coefficient MAIHDA analysis.Epidemiology and psychiatric sciences · 2026Article
- Towards a new model of population mental health research and policy translation in the UK: establishing a National consortium.International journal of mental health systems · 2026Article
- Antidepressant discontinuation in France from an intersectional perspective: a discrete-time survival analysis within the MAIHDA framework.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Mapping the evidence on the intersection of gender and social determinants of health in health inequality: a scoping review.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Intersectional inequities in suicide ideation by race, sexual orientation, and gender among US high school students in the pre- and post-2020 waves of the YRBSS: an application of random effects intersectional MAIHDA.American journal of epidemiology · 2025Article
- Social inequalities in SARS-CoV-2 infection in high income countries: highlighting the need for an intersectional perspective in quantitative research.Frontiers in public health · 2025Review
- Intersectional inequalities in mental health by education, income, gender, and age before and during the COVID-19 pandemic in the Netherlands: a longitudinal study.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Trajectories of Mental Distress Among US Women by Sexual Orientation and Racialized Group During the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic.American journal of public health · 2024Article
- Theorising the social in mental health research and action: a call for more inclusivity and accountability.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2024Article
- Intersectional discrimination and mental health inequalities: a qualitative study of young women's experiences in Scotland.International journal for equity in health · 2024Article
- Socioeconomic conditions and children's mental health and quality of life during the COVID-19 pandemic: An intersectional analysis.SSM - population health · 2023Article
- Multiple marginalized identities: Multilevel analysis of COVID-19 impacts on youth mental and behavioral health.Personalized medicine in psychiatryArticle
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
Abstract
purposeMental health inequalities across social identities/positions during the COVID-19 pandemic have been mostly reported independently from each other or in a limited way (e.g., at the intersection between age and sex or gender). We aim to provide an inclusive socio-demographic mapping of different mental health measures in the population using quantitative methods that are consistent with an intersectional perspective.
methodsData included 8,588 participants from two British cohorts (born in 1990 and 2000-2002, respectively), collected in February/March 2021 (during the third UK nationwide lockdown). Measures of anxiety and depressive symptomatology, loneliness, and life satisfaction were analysed using Multilevel Analysis of Individual Heterogeneity and Discriminatory Accuracy (MAIHDA) models.
resultsWe found evidence of large mental health inequalities across intersectional strata. Large proportions of those inequalities were accounted for by the additive effects of the variables used to define the intersections, with some of the largest gaps associated with sexual orientation (with sexual minority groups showing substantially worse outcomes). Additional inequalities were found by cohort/generation, birth sex, racial/ethnic groups, and socioeconomic position. Intersectional effects were observed mostly in intersections defined by combinations of privileged and marginalised social identities/positions (e.g., lower-than-expected life satisfaction in South Asian men in their thirties from a sexual minority and a disadvantaged childhood social class).
conclusionWe found substantial inequalities largely cutting across intersectional strata defined by multiple co-constituting social identities/positions. The large gaps found by sexual orientation extend the existing evidence that sexual minority groups were disproportionately affected by the pandemic. Study implications and limitations are discussed.
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.