AUTHOR=Shen Chan , Rashiwala Lucy , Wiener R. Constance , Findley Patricia A. , Wang Hao , Sambamoorthi Usha 

TITLE=The association of COVID-19 vaccine availability with mental health among adults in the United States

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=13

YEAR=2022

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.970007

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2022.970007

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=<sec><title>Objective</title><p>To assess whether COVID-19 vaccine approval and availability was associated with reduction in the prevalence of depression and anxiety among adults in the United States.</p></sec><sec><title>Methods</title><p>We adopted cross sectional and quasi-experimental design with mental health measurements before vaccine availability (June 2020, <italic>N</italic> = 68,009) and after vaccine availability (March 2021, <italic>N</italic> = 63,932) using data from Census Pulse Survey. Depression and anxiety were derived from PHQ-2 and GAD-2 questionnaires. We compared rates of depression and anxiety between June 2020 and March 2021. Unadjusted and adjusted analysis with replicate weights were conducted.</p></sec><sec><title>Results</title><p>Depression prevalence was 25.0% in June 2020 and 24.6% in March 2021; anxiety prevalence was 31.7% in June 2020 and 30.0% in March 2021 in the sample. In adjusted analysis, there were no significant differences in likelihood of depression and anxiety between June 2020 and March 2021.</p></sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title><p>Depression and anxiety were not significantly different between June 2020 and March 2021, which suggests that the pandemic effect continues to persist even with widespread availability of vaccines.</p></sec>