Pandemic Depression + Age

Using telephone and web survey data to study the impact of social determinants and health-related factors on depressive symptoms during the initial lockdown that started in March 2020 in Canada, Raina et al. (2021) came to the conclusion that overall, older adults had "twice the odds of depressive symptoms during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic". Further factors having an impact were. lower income, poorer health, loneliness, caregiving responsibilities, separation from family, family conflict, and gender (women were more affected).

"The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionated impact on older adults, with groups of people who were already marginalized feeling a far greater negative impact." Parminder Raina

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- Raina, P., Wolfson, C., Griffith, L., Kirkland, S., McMillan, J., Basta, N. Joshi, D., Erbas-Oz, U., Sohel, N., Maimon, G., Thompson, E. &  CLSA team (2021). A longitudinal analysis of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of middle-aged and older adults from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging. Nature Aging, 1, 1137- 1147; link
- photograph by Harvey Stein via