Lockdown strictness and mental health effects among older populations in Europe
Fecha
2022Versión
Acceso abierto / Sarbide irekia
Tipo
Artículo / Artikulua
Versión
Versión publicada / Argitaratu den bertsioa
Identificador del proyecto
Impacto
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10.1016/j.ehb.2022.101116
Resumen
This paper investigates whether lockdown policies aggravated mental health problems of older populations (50 and over) in Europe during the first COVID-19 wave. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE COVID-19 questionnaire) and from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker for 17 countries, we estimate the causal effect of lockdown policies on mental h ...
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This paper investigates whether lockdown policies aggravated mental health problems of older populations (50 and over) in Europe during the first COVID-19 wave. Using data from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE COVID-19 questionnaire) and from the Oxford COVID-19 Government Response Tracker for 17 countries, we estimate the causal effect of lockdown policies on mental health by combining cross-country variability in the strictness of the policies with cross-individual variability in face-to-face contacts prior to the pandemic. We find that lockdown policies worsened insomnia, anxiety, and depression by 5, 7.2 and 5.1 percentage points, respectively. This effect was stronger for women and those aged between 50 and 65. Interestingly, lockdown policies notably damaged the mental health of healthy populations. We close with a discussion of lockdown policies targeted at individuals above 65 and/or with pre-existing conditions. [--]
Materias
Causality,
Confinement,
Containment index,
COVID-19,
Lockdown,
Mental health,
Mobility restrictions,
Senior and older Europeans
Editor
Elsevier
Publicado en
Economics and Human Biology, 2022, 45
Departamento
Universidad Pública de Navarra. Departamento de Economía /
Nafarroako Unibertsitate Publikoa. Ekonomia Saila
Versión del editor
Entidades Financiadoras
We acknowledge financial support from Agencia Estatal de Investigación (Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación), project PID2019-104452RB-I00, Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional and Consejería de Transformación Económica, Industria, Conocimiento y Universidades, Junta de Andalucía, projects P18-RT-2135 and CV20-35470. Funding for open access publishing: Universidad Pablo de Olavide/CBUA.