Coping with COVID-19: Differences in hope, resilience, and mental well-being across U.S. racial groups

To explore if the COVID-19 pandemic revealed differences across racial groups in coping, resilience, and optimism, all of which have implications for health and mental well-being. We collect data obtained from four rounds of a national sample of 5,000 US survey respondents in each round from April 2...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2022-05, Vol.17 (5), p.e0267583
Main Authors: Graham, Carol, Chun, Yung, Hamilton, Bartram, Roll, Stephen, Ross, Wilbur, Grinstein-Weiss, Michal
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation, Psychological
Black people
Black white differences
Control
Coping
Coronaviruses
COVID-19
COVID-19 - epidemiology
Demographic aspects
Disease control
Epidemics
Ethnicity
Evaluation
Extreme values
Fear & phobias
Health behavior
Health care disparities
Hispanic Americans
Humans
Income
Life satisfaction
Low income groups
Management
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mental Health
Minority & ethnic groups
Mortality
Pandemics
People and Places
Polls & surveys
Public health
Public health administration
Race
Racial differences
Racial Groups
Racism
Regression analysis
Research and Analysis Methods
Resilience
Social behavior
Social distancing
Well being
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Summary:To explore if the COVID-19 pandemic revealed differences across racial groups in coping, resilience, and optimism, all of which have implications for health and mental well-being. We collect data obtained from four rounds of a national sample of 5,000 US survey respondents in each round from April 2020 to February 2021. Using logistic regression and fixed effects models, we estimate the pandemic impacts on COVID-19 related concerns, social distancing behaviors, and mental health/life satisfaction and optimism for racial/income groups. Despite extreme income and health disparities before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, Blacks and Hispanics remain more resilient and optimistic than their White counterparts. Moreover, the greatest difference in resilience, optimism and better mental health-is found between poor Blacks and poor Whites, a difference that persists through all four rounds. These deep differences in resilience have implications for the long-term mental health of different population groups in the face of an unprecedented pandemic. Better understanding these dynamics may provide lessons on how to preserve mental health in the face of public health and other large-scale crises.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0267583