Effekter av social distansering på psykisk ohälsa; En Google Trends analys : Pandemins effekt på psykisk ohälsa under covid-19 med hjälp av endifference-in-difference metod.

Sammanfattning

The covid-19 pandemic affected people’s health in several different ways, and government policies to address the pandemic sometimes needed to trade-off between containment of thevirus and other health aspects. This study aims to evaluate the effect of lockdown-policies on individuals’ mental wellbeing. To this end, we use a difference-in-difference method, comparing proxies for mental health before and after lockdown recommendations in 2020 relative to the same calendar months in the year preceding the pandemic. To measure mental health, we use data from Google Trends on the relative search intensity on words and classes of words associated with mental illness of various kinds. The results show that searches onmental illness increased in Sweden from March 2020, right after social distancing measures were put in place. To assess whether social isolation is a key mechanism rather than a general pandemic effect, we present hetergeneous effects by the share of single-person households atthe county level, which support social isolation as a potential channel. Given that thestate-imposed lockdown in Sweden was partial, the results can be considered a lower boundof social distance effects on mental illness.