{"doi":"10.1093/abm/kaaa126","title":"Trajectories of Mental Distress Among U.S. Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic","abstract":"BACKGROUND: Cross-sectional studies have found that the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has negatively affected population-level mental health. Longitudinal studies are necessary to examine trajectories of change in mental health over time and identify sociodemographic groups at risk for persistent distress. PURPOSE: To examine the trajectories of mental distress between March 10 and August 4, 2020, a key period during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHODS: Participants included 6,901 adults from the nationally representative Understanding America Study, surveyed at baseline between March 10 and 31, 2020, with nine follow-up assessments between April 1 and August 4, 2020. Mixed-effects logistic regression was used to examine the association between date and self-reported mental distress (measured with the four-item Patient Health Questionnaire) among U.S. adults overall and among sociodemographic subgroups defined by sex, age, race/ethnicity, household structure, federal poverty line, and census region. RESULTS: Compared to March 11, the odds of mental distress among U.S. adults overall were 1.84 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.65-2.07) times higher on April 1 and 1.92 (95% CI = 1.62-2.28) times higher on May 1; by August 1, the odds of mental distress had returned to levels comparable to March 11 (odds ratio [OR] = 0.80, 95% CI = 0.66-0.96). Females experienced a sharper increase in mental distress between March and May compared to males (females: OR = 2.29, 95% CI = 1.85-2.82; males: OR = 1.53, 95% CI = 1.15-2.02). CONCLUSIONS: These findings highlight the trajectory of mental health symptoms during an unprecedented pandemic, including the identification of populations at risk for sustained mental distress.","journal":"Annals of Behavioral Medicine","year":2021,"id":149334,"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":108,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.944,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":382677,"name":"Calliope Holingue","orcid":"0000-0002-8190-2385","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":635017,"name":"Emily Smail","orcid":"0000-0003-2627-052X","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":347759,"name":"Arie Kapteyn","orcid":"0000-0002-1855-5528","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":347757,"name":"Daniel Bennett","orcid":"0000-0002-0949-2297","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":367324,"name":"Johannes Thrul","orcid":"0000-0001-8929-9579","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":635018,"name":"Frauke Kreuter","orcid":"0000-0002-7339-2645","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287907,"name":"Emma E. McGinty","orcid":"0009-0003-5095-9308","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":382675,"name":"Luther G. Kalb","orcid":"0000-0002-7637-7192","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264197,"name":"Cindy B. Veldhuis","orcid":"0000-0002-4513-9554","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":525900,"name":"Reneé M. Johnson","orcid":null,"position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":289395,"name":"M. Daniele Fallin","orcid":"0000-0002-9948-3908","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":287735,"name":"Elizabeth A. Stuart","orcid":"0000-0002-9042-8611","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":2050,"name":"Kira E. Riehm","orcid":"0000-0002-9061-0560","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:42:51.282401Z","pmid":"33555336","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":[]}