A handful of studies Serrano-Alarcon et al., 2021; Davillas and Jones, 2021; Bonomi et al., 2021), including ours (Anaya et al., 2023, 2024), benefitted from this data collection effort in order to test and conclude that, indeed, the covid-19 pandemic had a sizable detrimental impact on people’s mental health in the UK; thereby confirming, on this occasion, most people’s intuitive concerns.
For instance, Serrano-Alarcon et al. were interested in identifying the mental health impact of containment measures from other potential sources of distress such as fear of contagion. of the nearly middle east rcs data two-weeks difference between England and Scotland in the date of lockdown relaxation during May 2020. Comparing the change in mental health during that period between the two populations, they convincingly conclude that lifting the lockdown improved mental health.
Meanwhile, in our study we were worried about potential confounding factors hindering a reliable estimation of the magnitude of the mental health fallout from the first pandemic wave. Specifically, we wanted to neutralise any season effects, as the first wave, and concomitant containment measures, occurred between the end of winter and start of spring. In fact, the first countrywide lockdown was instituted very close to the spring equinox, on March the 23rd, 2020. Hence, with the help of the UKLHS we were able to compare the difference in mental health of a “treatment group” comprising people observed soon before and after the lockdown date, with the respective difference for a “control group” involving people observed soon before and after March the 23rd 2019.