Mental and social wellbeing trajectory for vulnerable populations during the pandemic
Existing research into people’s wellbeing and psychological distress in Australia during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed significant differences between population groups. Yet, there is a lack of research understanding how the mental health of these groups changed over time.
Previous research indicates that some groups may be at higher risk for negative mental health and wellbeing impacts from the pandemic and should be monitored more closely. However, these studies often compared pre-pandemic survey results to a single survey during the pandemic and primarily used 'convenience samples,' leading to significant variations in findings.
To help fill this gap in knowledge, this research paper uses data from VicHealth’s coronavirus Victorian wellbeing impact surveys to investigate mental and social wellbeing changes over time for vulnerable populations in Victoria during the pandemic. These groups are:
- Younger people aged 25 years or under
- People with disabilities
- Low-income (less than $40,000 per year)
- The unemployed
- Culturally and linguistically diverse (CaLD) communities which includes people who speak a language other than English at home and/or are born in a non-English speaking country
- Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples
A series of four surveys were conducted in June 2020, September 2020, January 2022 and June 2022. The first two surveys asked about experiences from the start of COVID-19 restrictions, and the second two about their experiences from October 2021, when the final restrictions were eased.
They asked questions relating to life satisfaction, psychological distress, social connection, financial hardship and socio-demographic characteristics.
RESULTS
The results provide a unique perspective on how different population groups fared during the pandemic in relation to mental health and wellbeing.
They highlight the large discrepancy in mental health and social wellbeing between those with and without vulnerability, and the ongoing need for policies that can address these large inequities in health outcomes.
The full paper unpacks the results in detail, with some key findings being:
- Lockdowns seemed to impact social connections and overall life satisfaction, with better results in 2022 than 2020 for most groups.
- Psychological distress and financial hardship showed a different pattern of results over time, with worse results in 2022 than 2020.
- Life satisfaction increased more for people without any vulnerability between 2020 and 2022. There was a 10% higher rate of dissatisfaction in the group with a vulnerability, and this difference was maintained for each survey.
- The proportion of people experiencing psychological distress increased for Aboriginal and Torres Straight Islander peoples, people with disabilities, and people with low income between 2020 to 2022.
- In terms of people who experienced high psychological distress, there was a significant gap between vulnerable groups and people without any vulnerability.
- People with disabilities and people who were unemployed had much lower social connection scores for each survey.
- The results of financial hardship revealed that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples experienced very high levels, in each survey.
- For every other group, there was a significant increase at the final survey (and some at survey 3) compared to 1 & 2. This also included people without any vulnerability, although they had significantly less financial hardship relative to each subgroup.