The COVID-19 global pandemic is not the first event –good or bad -- to be shared by

the entire world, but in this age of technology and social connection when information
travels the earth at lightning speed, we are all living the full impact of this collective
experience, in real time. The countless individual tragedies of the virus come together
in a cumulative and mutual loss to which few of us are immune. In this Q&A, Dr.
Debra Kaysen, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences with the Public
Mental Health & Population Sciences Division, helps us better understand our
communal grief and how to deal with the societal stress of COVID-19. Dr. Kaysen
specializes in the treatment of trauma and PTSD and is the President of the
International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).

Black people have been hit on all sides with the threat of loss of
life,” says Riana Anderson, assistant professor at the University of
Michigan’s School of Public Health. “It is exhausting. Depleting.
Depressing. And absolutely an additional stressor.” She argues that
family and community support is a strength of the Black community,
but physical distancing restrictions have made it more difficult to
access that power.

In early April, the United Nations called for immediate global action to

combat the increasing violence against women and girls during the
pandemic. 
According to news reports, domestic violence is increasing worldwide.
At one police station just over 100 miles from Wuhan, China, for
example, reports were three times higher in February 2020 compared
to February 2019. In New Orleans, domestic aggravated
assaults jumped 37 percentfrom January to April. Similar trends have
been reported in Spain, Italy, Germany, and Brazil. As people are
stuck at home, calls to helplines are surging.  
Scientific surveys are only just beginning, but some
preliminary resultsconfirm these trends. Among people who were
already experiencing domestic violence, the violence has gotten
worse in nearly 60 percent of cases, report Buttell and Ferreira. 
In their view, this comes down to a variety of factors: people spending
more time at home with abusive partners, unemployment and other
financial stressors causing conflict, shelters shutting their doors, and
police being discouraged from making arrests.
Needless to say, the threat of abuse is compounding the stress,
anxiety, and fear that many people are already experiencing during
the pandemic. 

4. The effects depend on your personality,

lifestyle, and demographics
While older people have greater health risks from COVID-19, it seems
to be younger people who are struggling emotionally. According to
studies from Spain, China, and Slovenia, younger people tend to be
more depressed, anxious, stressed, and traumatized in the era of
COVID-19. The same is true for women, who may also be
more lonely.  
There’s no clear explanation for why this might be true, but
researchers have some speculations. Women tend to have worse
mental health in general, and certain stressors right now—like the
added burden of caregiving and the risk of losing jobs—may fall more
heavily on women. 
For younger people, it could be the disruptions to their routines that
are to blame, particularly for college students who have had to adjust
to online schooling. In studies across both China and the United
States, the more the pandemic was affecting people’s daily lives, the
more anxious they felt. 
Personality also influences how we fare in tough times. Two related
traits that seem to matter during the pandemic are our ability to
tolerate uncertainty and our ability to tolerate distress. While it’s hard
for anyone to struggle or face the unknown, some people are less
comfortable with it than others. And right now, it’s those people who
seem to be ruminating more, feeling more afraid, and experiencing
more depression, anxiety, and PTSD. 
5. It’s worse for disadvantaged groups
In studies across the world, researchers investigated what else might
make people vulnerable to mental health problems during the
pandemic. They found a few key factors that put people at risk. 
For one, people with poor health or chronic diseases tend to have
higher symptoms of stress, anxiety, depression,
and PTSD, several studies found. Of course, this might be because
these are also the people with greater health risks from COVID-19. 
Your income and education matter, too.
The less stable your income and the less educated you are, studies
suggest, the more anxiety, depression, and stress you will experience.
The pandemic is threatening the economy, affecting everyone’s
financial future, but the situation is worse for people who were already
struggling. In a very real sense, we’re not all in the same boat.
“It is an inescapable fact that people lower on the
socioeconomic ladder are struggling more”
―David Sbarra, Ph.D.
A Pew survey of nearly 5,000 Americans in April found that the lowest-
income people were most afraid of getting COVID-19, too. “[While]
Americans may be struggling with the emotional challenges of the
pandemic, it is an inescapable fact that people lower on the
socioeconomic ladder are struggling more,” says psychologist David
Sbarra. 
6. The effects are compounded by racism
Those unequal effects extend all the way to who lives and who dies. 

In fact, Black people are more likely to be infected, less likely to be

tested and treated, and less likely to survive if they get COVID-19.
According to Andrea King Collier in an article for Greater Good, a
history of racism means the Black community is confronting the
pandemic with worse health, less access to care, and more distrust of
the medical system.  
That means they have more reason to be fearful for their own lives,
and they are more likely to experience loss. In fact, Pew research
suggests that more than a quarter of Black Americans know someone
who was hospitalized or died from COVID-19, compared to 1 in 10
white Americans. 
These hardships worsened after the police killing of George Floyd, a
Black man in Minnesota. His death catalyzed nationwide protests for
racial justice—but at the same time, many observers say, it made the
pandemic even harder for many Black Americans.

“Black people have been hit on all sides with the threat of loss of
life,” says Riana Anderson, assistant professor at the University of
Michigan’s School of Public Health. “It is exhausting. Depleting.
Depressing. And absolutely an additional stressor.” She argues that
family and community support is a strength of the Black community,
but physical distancing restrictions have made it more difficult to
access that power. 
Other people of color are suffering disproportionally under the
pandemic, too. Nearly one-fifth of Latino adults were experiencing
serious psychological distress in April 2020; the CDC estimates that
Latinos make up over half of the U.S. agricultural workforce, a group
of essential workers whose jobs put them at greater risk of
infection. Discrimination against Asians has risen since the pandemic
started in Wuhan, China. 

Anti-Racist Resources from Greater Good

 Stories, tips, and tools to reduce prejudice in society and in
ourselves.

Read It Now

All of these inequities create mental health problems that are even

more aggravated by reduced and unequal access to mental health
services.
7. Your work situation matters
One of the biggest disruptions to our daily lives today is how the
pandemic has affected our work. 

Doctors, nurses, and paramedics are taking on the urgent task of

caring for COVID-19 patients, while other essential workers are
putting themselves at risk to sell food, deliver mail, and pick up trash.
Many office jobs have transitioned to remote work, asking employees
to isolate at home, with many precariously juggling work and care for
children or elders. 

Other people have been unable to continue work during the pandemic,
waiting for the time when they’ll be called back, while some have been
laid off entirely. Unemployment in the U.S. more than quadrupled from
February to April, leveling off in July at 10 percent. 
A Chinese survey in mid-February examined some of these work
situations, though not all. What was clear is that people who are
unable to work temporarily—even if they don’t get laid off—have
worse mental health. And while working in an office might seem risky,
it was the people working from home who were actually more
distressed and less satisfied with their lives. 
Caring for yourself and others
There’s a lot we don’t have control over in this situation, which is
stressful in and of itself. You may have some of the risk factors
mentioned above, and there’s nothing you