The corona crisis has a major impact on the mental health of Northerners. At the start of the crisis, Drenten, Groningers and Frisians gave their lives an average of 7.4. That figure has dropped to 6.9.
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The corona measures also have a major impact on our mental health. Thus they lead to a reduced interconnectedness. Less than half of the people still feel connected to others, compared to 70 percent in March last year.
The University and the UMCG came out with these figures after the Lifelines corona study in which 30,000 people in the Northern Netherlands completed questionnaires about their physical and mental health.
A downward trend for everyone
The measures have a significant impact on society as a whole. The research shows that more and more people feel gloomy, listless or lonely. This declining mental health is visible in every layer of the population, regardless of age, education level, gender or type of household.
The crisis is seriously affecting young adults. This group gave their life a 7.7 in the summer, now it has dropped to 6.0. According to the researchers, possible causes for this are online education, few social contacts and no side jobs in the hospitality industry. Young adults are also relatively often tested positive for the virus or a housemate turns out to have the virus, which means that student houses have to be quarantined.
Learning from the data
Despite the strict lockdown measures, many more people go to work. In the first lockdown, 40 percent worked on location, now it is 51 percent. Highly educated people in particular go to work more often, while they did not do this during the first lockdown.
Lude Franke, professor of genetics at the UMCG, mentions the impact this research may have. “Since the start of the pandemic, we have collected a lot of detailed information from the participants in the large Lifelines study, such as their health, living and work situation. This data makes it possible to investigate risk factors for contracting a COVID-19 infection and which measures have had which effect. Hopefully these insights can contribute in the future to measures that have the smallest possible impact on the well-being of the Dutch. “
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