COVID-19 Pandemic Impacts, Basic Needs, and Psychosocial Well-Being: Racial Disparities Among Emerging Adults

• In Event: Constructing Racially Just Educational Experiences: Problems and Solutions From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood

Abstract

The 2013-2021 trends in college students’ mental health symptoms revealed significant increases in rates of depression and anxiety, as well as persisting racial/ethnic disparities (Lipson et al., 2022). Also, college students reported elevated levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness after the COVID-19 Pandemic started (Lee et al., 2021). The scope of the pandemic impacts on students included academics (Aguilera-Hermida, 2020), finances (Cohen et al., 2020), access to food (Kecojevic et al., 2020), and racial discrimination (Molock & Parchem, 2021). In this study, we investigated racial disparities in food insecurity (i.e., a lack of reliable access to healthy, affordable, and adequate food) as well as differences in COVID-19 pandemic impacts and psychosocial well-being among young adults. Identifying race-based inequalities can illuminate the compounding stressors facing emerging adults who identified as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) as COVID-19 exacerbated health and socioeconomic disparities.

The data were collected from incoming college students through a Qualtrics survey administered between June and August of 2022 before the students matriculated at a large Mid-Atlantic university (N = 2,327; Mage = 19; SD = 2.1). The racial composition of the sample was 42% White/European/European American, 31% Asian/Asian American, 10% Black or African American, 6% Chicano, Hispanic, or Latinx, 2% Middle Eastern/North African, <1% American Indian or Alaska Native, <1% Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and about 10% bi- or multi-racial. The research protocol was approved by the Institutional Review Board, and all students provided informed consent before completing the survey.
The measures included: the Pandemic Impact Scale (Impact on Basic Needs, Resources, & Safety, α= .78; Impact on Academics, α = .76; Impact on Health, α = .79; Authors, 2020); U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Household Food Security – Adult Module (USDA, 2012); Emotion Thermometers (distress, anxiety, depression, anger; Mitchell, 2007; Mitchell et al., 2010); Three-Item Loneliness Scale (Hughes et al., 2004; α = .84); and Satisfaction with Life Scale (Diener et al., 1985; α = .87). We also included one item from the RAND 36-item Short-Form Health Survey (Ware & Sherbourne, 1992) to capture overall assessment of health, and one item about meeting ends financially.

Compared to White respondents, BIPOC students reported greater overall adverse pandemic impacts as well as impacts specific to academics and basic needs/ resources/safety. They were also were more likely to be food insecure, reported higher levels of distress and loneliness, gave lower assessment of overall health, had less secure financial resources to make ends meet, and reported lower levels of life satisfaction than did their White counterparts. As expected, experiences of food insecurity and pandemic impacts were related to levels of mental health symptoms (distress, anxiety, depression, anger) and loneliness.

Our findings highlight differential pandemic impacts and health disparities among emerging adults. We echo other scholars’ calls for urgently addressing social and structural mechanisms that are drivers of vulnerabilities and disparities (Rami et al., 2023; Webb Hooper et al., 2020). College and universities need to develop targeted psychosocial and educational interventions to close the widening and alarming health equity gaps.

Authors

• Yu-Wei Wang, University of Maryland

• Israel Abebe, University of Maryland

• Tiana Cruz, University of Maryland