More than the money: how assets and stressors shaped depression across racial/ethnic groups during COVID-19

PROJECT SUMMARY While the COVID-19 pandemic upended daily life for most people, the economic and mental health effects of the pandemic and its consequences have not been borne equally. With the economic fallout from the pandemic falling disproportionately on racial and ethnic minorities as well as women, it is possible and likely that mental health disparities are widening between the groups with access to assets relative to groups without assets. In the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has led to what has been called the most unequal recession in history, it is possible that the gaps in mental health will widen over time, particularly for persons with overlapping marginalized identities that historically reported greater burden of depression and less access to assets. Our previous work shows that unequal access to assets, in part as a result of historical and structural exclusion of racial minorities from wealth accumulation, may explain differences in patterns of depression across racial and ethnic groups. Several unknowns remain: (1) the effects of stressors and multiple assets on depression across race/ethnicity, gender, and age groups across the COVID-19 pandemic and at the intersection of these identities, (2) trends in stressor exposure and depression incidence over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (3) the influence of assets at different levels (e.g., individual, household, and neighborhood) in protecting against depression by group status. This Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship (Parent F31) application builds on preliminary research that the investigator has conducted and aims to understand the influence of stressors and assets on depression during the COVID-19 pandemic at multiple timepoints across different and intersecting groups. The proposed work, grounded in an eco-social framework, will use data from two original surveys, including (1) a probability-based, nationally representative, longitudinal sample collected in March-April 2020 and 12-months later in March-April 2021 and (2) a probability-based urban sample collected in November 2020-April 2021 that includes geospatial data facilitating spatial analysis of neighborhood assets. Together, these datasets will allow for assessment of the role of stressors and assets at multiple levels in shaping the risk of depression during the COVID-19 pandemic and the accompanying economic downturn as well as the disparities in depression that have grown due to growing gaps in economic status. Understanding how social and economic contexts intersect with multiple identities, be they racial/ethnic, gender, or age, can inform policy and medical interventions to address the rising mental illness in the U.S. while also informing decision making following other largescale events in the future towards the end of reducing disparities in mental illness.