'Poll: Pandemic Takes Toll On Mental Health of Young Adults' [View all]
'Poll: Pandemic takes toll on mental health of young adults.' By Cheyanne Mumphrey, Jennifer Sinco Kelleher, 2 hrs ago.
PHOENIX (AP) The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety.
A majority of Americans ages 18 through 34 56% say they have at least sometimes felt isolated in the past month, compared with about 4 in 10 older Americans, according to the latest COVID Response Tracking Study conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. Twenty-five percent of young adults rate their mental health as fair or poor, compared with 13% of older adults, while 56% of older adults say their mental health is excellent or very good, compared with just 39% of young adults.
Christina Torres, 32, a middle school teacher in Honolulu, had to postpone her June wedding and was not able to travel to her grandmothers funeral in California because of the pandemic. She misses being able to deal with stress by going to the gym and getting together with friends. And so its hard to not feel really hopeless sometimes, especially because the numbers keep going up, she said. The study found that younger Americans also consistently show higher rates of psychosomatic symptoms, like having trouble sleeping, getting headaches or crying, compared to other age groups. The likelihood of experiencing such symptoms decreases with age.
One possible explanation for the age gap could be that young adults have less experience dealing with a public health crisis, said Tom Smith, who has directed NORCs General Social Survey since 1980. Smith, 71, says he grew up being told not to play in the dirt because of the risk of contracting polio. This experience facing a pandemic is completely new for most younger adults, he said. Torres thought some of the hardship her generation is experiencing now could be attributed to their lack of historical context, compared with her parents generation...
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- April 30, 2020, a man wears a face mask as he walks on Pier 45 in Hudson River Park in New York. The coronavirus pandemic has taken a harsh toll on the mental health of young Americans, according to a new poll that finds adults under 35 especially likely to report negative feelings or experience physical or emotional symptoms associated with stress and anxiety. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan).