July 30, 2024
By Wayne Lewis
A recent study found that the risk of depression has increased among non-white residents of Los Angeles County during the COVID-19 pandemic, exacerbating racial disparities in mental health.
Scientists from USC and the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (DPH) found that residents of areas with high COVID-19 mortality rates are more likely to face risk of depression compared to residents of areas with moderate or low COVID-19 mortality rates.
Additionally, in hard-hit areas, there was a trend toward an overall increased risk of depression among non-white Los Angeles County residents – Asian, black, Hispanic, and Native American – but not white residents.
“Post-COVID, non-white mortality rates are rising,” said lead author Neeraj Sood, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Price School of Public Policy and director of the Covid Initiative at USC’s Schaefer Center for Health Policy and Economics. “There are huge disparities in the impact of Covid. Depending on who you are and where you live, your experience during the pandemic could be much worse.”
The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, measured the risk of major depression among adults, along with mortality data, using two surveys conducted in 2018 and spring 2021. The researchers considered monthly averages from March 2020 (when the first stay-at-home orders were issued) to mid-April 2021 (after the pandemic had peaked). Counties were divided into three zones based on their level of COVID-19 deaths.
In 2021, non-white respondents in areas with the highest COVID-19 death toll tended to be at higher risk of depression than their peers in areas with lower COVID-19 death rates.
Even in 2018, the risk of depression was higher for non-white residents of the Los Angeles Metropolitan Area, South Los Angeles, and East Los Angeles than for non-white residents of West Los Angeles and the South Bay. By 2021, the gap had widened.
“The pandemic has hit non-whites harder than whites, and we speculated that the mental health effects may be related to the circumstances in which they live,” said corresponding author Jonathan Lamb, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at the University of Southern California’s Keck School of Medicine. “They may have multigenerational households, which means they don’t have enough space to isolate from their families when COVID-19 hits. They may have worked in industries where they had few protections and little time off to get tested. This could drastically increase their stress and erode their ability to cope with the pandemic.”
The 2021 survey was part of the Los Angeles Pandemic Surveillance Cohort Initiative, a collaboration between the USC Schaefer Center, the Department of Population and Public Health Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine, and DPH.
The researchers’ findings add to understanding of a previously little-studied topic: the pandemic’s long-term effects on mental health in Los Angeles County. What they learned may inform efforts to mitigate these challenges through programs such as the LA County Health Department’s Wellness Centers and Community Public Health Team efforts. The study could also help target support in future virus outbreaks.
“Similar pandemics are likely to occur in the future, and our study provides an interesting test case for how we might adapt,” Lam said. “When considering how to allocate mental health resources, we should put more of them in the communities with the greatest need.”
About the Study
Other co-authors on the study are Ryan Lee, Daniel Soto and Jennifer Unger of the Keck School of Medicine, and Alex Ho of DPH.
This study was supported by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, the Conrad N. Hilton Foundation, the USC Office of the President, DPH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the W. M. Keck Foundation.
