Published in the journal JAMA Network Open, the study also found that income and savings are the most dramatic predictors of depression symptoms in the time of COVID"Depression in the general population after prior large scale traumatic events has been observed to, at most, double," says study senior author Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean and Robert A. Knox Professor at BUSPH, citing examples such as September 11, the Ebola outbreak, and civil unrest in Hong Kong.
"We were surprised to see these results at first, but other studies since conducted suggest similar-scale mental health consequences," Galea says. These studies have mainly been conducted in Asia and focused on specific populations such as healthcare workers and college students (one such study found depression symptoms among half of Chinese healthcare workers who had treated COVID patients).