Study finds how Covid-19 affected mental, physical health of college students
Covid-19: According to recent research, the mental and physical health of college students declined even after the introduction of Covid-19 vaccines and the easing of social distancing methods.
In fact, the researchers in spring 2021 found marked declines in both physical and emotional health, students sustained a 35 percent decline in their number of daily steps and a 36 percent increase in the number at risk of clinical depression, or roughly half of the total students surveyed.
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The scientists, including one each from the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University as well as the University of California San Diego and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, combined biometric and survey data from several groups of college students (totaling 1,179) from spring 2019 to spring 2021 in a study published online December 2 in Scientific Reports.
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"We were surprised when the data showed us that some of the initial disruptions to lifestyle and mental health that occurred in the spring of 2020 persisted through spring 2021 while restrictions were being lifted," said Osea Giuntella, an expert in labour and health economics and an assistant professor in the Department of Economics in the Kenneth P. Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences.
The researchers, in a paper published earlier this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), used data from prior to the pandemic's spring 2020 international onset to document sizeable disruptions in sleep, physical activity, social interactions, and even screen time among college students.
The Scientific Reports paper examines a continuation of "lifestyle and mental health disruptions one year" into these times of Covid-19.
While the new study contributes to a larger focus on habit formation and adaptation to environmental changes, it offers a data-distilled look at how this subset suffered physical and mental well-being alterations, which could influence policies and protocols in the short- and long term.
