{"doi":"10.1089/heq.2022.0197","title":"Financial Hardship and Psychological Distress During the Pandemic: A Nationally Representative Survey of Major Racial-Ethnic Groups in the United States","abstract":"Introduction: While financial hardship has been consistently linked to psychological distress, little research exists on associations between financial hardship experienced during the pandemic and mental health. Methods: =5500). Six financial hardship domains were measured (lost income, debt, unmet expenses, unmet health care expenses, housing insecurity, and food insecurity). Psychological distress measures included anxiety-depression symptoms (Patient Health Questionnaire-4), perceived stress (modified Perceived Stress Scale), and loneliness-isolation (\"In the past month, how often have you felt lonely and isolated?\"). Associations between financial hardship and psychological distress were estimated using multinomial logistic regression. Results: Overall, 70.3% of participants reported experiencing financial hardship (substantial hardship: 21.3%; some hardship: 27.4%; and a little hardship: 21.6%), with Spanish-speaking Latino (87.3%) and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander (79.2%) adults being most likely. Debt (57.6%), lost income (44.5%), and unmet expenses (33.7%) were the most common. There was a dose-response association between financial hardship and moderate/severe anxiety-depression symptoms (a little hardship: adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=1.42, 95% confidence interval [CI]=1.12-1.80; some hardship: aOR=3.21, 95% CI=2.58-3.98; and substantial hardship: aOR=8.15, 95% CI=6.45-10.29). Similar dose-response trends were observed with perceived stress and loneliness-isolation. No racial-ethnic difference in the association between financial hardship during the pandemic and psychological distress was seen. Discussion: Financial hardship has had a major impact on psychological distress during the pandemic; moreover, while no racial-ethnic difference in the effect of financial hardship was observed, because racial-ethnic minorities experienced greater hardship, financial hardship may exacerbate psychological distress disparities.","journal":"Health Equity","year":2023,"id":339986,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":16,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7225,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2023-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":399513,"name":"Paula D. Strassle","orcid":"0000-0002-1072-1560","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":994067,"name":"Stephanie Ponce","orcid":null,"position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1074322,"name":"Izzy Mendez","orcid":null,"position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":690077,"name":"Stephanie M. Quintero","orcid":null,"position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":994068,"name":"Miciah J. Wilkerson","orcid":null,"position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":44595,"name":"Anita L. Stewart","orcid":"0000-0002-4967-9013","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":217918,"name":"Anna María Nápoles","orcid":"0000-0001-8838-2899","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":689220,"name":"Alia Alhomsi","orcid":"0000-0002-2458-4448","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":27,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:10:49.535464Z","pmid":"37483650","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}