According to a study by the University of Rochester, the COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on mental health concerns on Twitter in the US, and certain groups of people, such as men and whites, were more likely to express such concerns. . The study was published in ‘Health Data Science, a science partner journal’.
“Mental health concerns have increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic in the US. Using Twitter data, we identified key topics discussed about mental health concerns through advanced deep learning algorithms and investigated potential differences across demographic groups to understand mental health concerns in the US during the pandemic. ,” said co-author Dongmei Li, associate professor at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
Investigators collected COVID-19 related tweets between March 5, 2020 and January 31, 2021. The eligible tweets were compared with the US daily Covid-19 case count to reveal a possible correlation. In addition, common themes among these tweets were identified and demographic patterns such as age, gender, race and location of Twitter users were elucidated using algorithms. “We saw a positive correlation between the number of tweets mentioning mental health concerns and the number of COVID-19 cases in the US.
Social distancing, travel restrictions, and uncertainty about the length of the COVID-19 pandemic appear to be major contributors to mental health concerns during the pandemic in the US. All of this indicated a significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health concerns in the US, and this effect is seen more in men and white Twitter users,” Lee shared, explaining the results of the research.
The proportion of people who use Twitter decreases with age in America. However, the majority of people who posted mental health tweets during the study period were middle-aged and seniors. Furthermore, in all age groups above 18 years, men except those aged 18-29 were more likely to express mental health concerns. These results provide further insight into the demographic profile of Twitter users with mental health concerns during the pandemic. Earlier work has shown that the COVID-19 pandemic has a significant impact on the mental health of the public.
What’s more, the amount of tweets on mental health was relatively stable before peaking during the COVID-19 outbreak. The study went a step further as it revealed a positive association between the COVID-19 pandemic and mental health concerns on Twitter in the US. Interestingly, with the decline of mental health tweets against high COVID-19 cases at the end of 2020, there is a grain of hope, which may indicate confidence associated with the success of vaccine development and vaccination program rollouts. “The next step is to do more to reassure public confidence in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic and provide more mental health support to more vulnerable populations.”
Lee commented that she is looking at the efforts in the next phase. “With the development of effective COVID-19 vaccines and the increasing prevalence of vaccination in the US and globally, we hope to reduce mental health concerns in the US and other counties. Our ultimate goal is to inform the public about mental health concerns during the pandemic through social media data mining, which can help reduce the burden of mental health issues,” Lee said.
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