Murphy Jen, Elliot Mark
School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester, M21 9DN Greater Manchester UK.
Discov Soc Sci Health. 2022;2(1):6. doi: 10.1007/s44155-022-00009-x. Epub 2022 Apr 25.
We investigated the trajectory of wellbeing over the course of the first wave and sought to determine whether the change in wellbeing is distributed equally across the population. Specifically we investigated pre-existing medical conditions, social isolation, financial stress and deprivation as a predictor for wellbeing and whether there were community level characteristics which protect against poorer wellbeing.
Using online survey responses from the COVID-19 modules of Understanding society, we linked 8379 English cases across five waves of data collection to location based deprivation statistics. We used ordinary least squares regression to estimate the association between deprivation, pre-existing conditions and socio-demographic factors and the change in well-being scores over time, as measured by the GHQ-12 questionnaire.
A decline in wellbeing was observed at the beginning of the first lock down period at the beginning of March 2020. This was matched with a corresponding recovery between April and July as restrictions were gradually lifted. There was no association between the decline and deprivation, nor between deprivation and recovery. The strongest predictor of wellbeing during the lock down, was the baseline score, with the counterintuitive finding that for those will pre-existing poor wellbeing, the impact of pandemic restrictions on mental health were minimal, but for those who had previously felt well, the restrictions and the impact of the pandemic on well-being were much greater.
These data show no evidence of a social gradient in well-being related to the pandemic. In fact, well-being was shown to be highly elastic in this period indicating a national level of resilience which cut across the usually observed health inequalities.
我们调查了第一波疫情期间幸福感的变化轨迹，并试图确定幸福感的变化在整个人口中的分布是否均匀。具体而言，我们调查了既往病史、社会隔离、经济压力和贫困状况作为幸福感的预测因素，以及是否存在能够预防幸福感下降的社区层面特征。
利用来自“理解社会”项目中新冠疫情模块的在线调查回复，我们将五轮数据收集过程中的8379例英国案例与基于地点的贫困统计数据相联系。我们使用普通最小二乘法回归来估计贫困、既往病史和社会人口学因素与幸福感得分随时间变化之间的关联，幸福感得分通过一般健康问卷-12（GHQ-12）进行测量。
2020年3月初首次封锁开始时，观察到幸福感下降。随着限制措施逐渐解除，4月至7月出现了相应的恢复。幸福感下降与贫困之间没有关联，贫困与恢复之间也没有关联。封锁期间幸福感最强的预测因素是基线得分，得出了一个与直觉相反的结果，即对于那些既往幸福感较差的人，疫情限制对心理健康的影响最小，但对于那些之前感觉良好的人，限制措施以及疫情对幸福感的影响要大得多。
这些数据表明，没有证据表明与疫情相关的幸福感存在社会梯度差异。事实上，在此期间幸福感表现出高度的弹性，这表明国家层面的恢复力跨越了通常观察到的健康不平等现象。
