The need to promote mental health conversations is urgent in a pandemic situation, more than ever before. There has been some research to point out that the impact of a lockdown and burden of a pandemic is not shared across demographics, especially with its impact on mental health. Adding more to the conversation are two UK-based surveys, one of which suggests that a majority of the LGBTQ+ community is going through stress and depression. The other survey notes that young women are experiencing a decline in mental health.
The uneven mental health burden during the lockdown. Photo Credit: Shutterstock
The survey documenting the lockdown experiences of the LGBTQ+ community also found that the younger members of the community, between the ages of 18 to 24 years, experienced poorer mental health than their older counterparts. It was also noted that eight in ten transgender and gender diverse people reported depressive symptoms, and found the lockdown hard to deal with.
“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed and magnified existent societal and health inequities that operate across multiple and intersecting systems of oppression. Given documented stark health and socioeconomic inequalities known to exist on the basis of being LGBTQ+, it sadly comes as no surprise to see from our survey results that lockdown has been particularly difficult for many within the LGBTQ+ community,” said co-lead author, Dr. Dylan Kneale at the UCL Institute of Education.
The other study found that women around the age of 30 years, if previously diagnosed, noted an increase in mental health issues when compared to their older counterparts. The 18,000 participants were divided into four groups on the basis of their year of birth. The most vulnerable groups were women, especially 19-year-olds and 30-year-olds. [1]
A preprint of the results of the Queerantine survey is available on MedRxiv. [2]
