The degree of mental health distress among young adults and adults in the United States was a source of urgent concern of public health experts well before the arrival of the COVID-19 pandemic.
But after government lockdowns and social distancing guidelines forced people into isolation, public health research has doubled down on how pandemic-era policies—and the effects of COVID-19 infection itself—factor into rates of depression, anxiety and other mental health problems among young adults and others.
And new data looking at the last three years shows just how much younger Americans, as well as adults, struggled during the pandemic.
