COVID Worries Dwindling, but Americans Are Still Anxious

NEW ORLEANS -- Fewer Americans are anxious about the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the annual Healthy Minds Poll.

About half of adults in the U.S. reported pandemic-related anxiety -- down from 65% in 2021 and 75% in 2020, the poll, which was released at the American Psychiatric Association (APA) annual meeting, showed.

This isn't to say that Americans are experiencing less anxiety in general, however. In fact, 32% said they feel more anxiety than last year, while 46% said that their level of anxiety has remained stagnant. Only 18% said they have less anxiety overall this year than last.

Other stressors are edging out COVID-19 as the top sources of 2022 anxiety, including global current events -- 73% of Americans said that they are somewhat or extremely anxious about the state of the world. Anxiety about keeping themselves or their families safe was reported in 64%, and general health anxiety was reported in 60%.

In general, fewer adults (26%) said they have spoken with a mental health professional this year, although proportions were higher for Hispanic adults (36%) and Black adults (35%).

Pediatric Anxiety

Interestingly, adults felt less worried about their children's mental health, even after U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, MD, MBA, issued an advisory on the youth mental health crisis just a few months ago. This announcement was trailed by new CDC data released in March that showed that 44% of high school students reported persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. On top of that, about 20% of respondents said they seriously considered attempting suicide, and 9% had attempted suicide during the prior 12 months.

While 53% of adults said they were concerned about their child's mental state in 2021, only 41% felt the same in 2022.

Prior to the pandemic, 36% of parents had said their child received some form of professional mental health help, which increased to 40% when the pandemic started. Half of parents who sought such help for their children said that the pandemic caused problems for their child. About a third of parents reported difficulties in scheduling mental health care visits for their children.

"While the overall level of concern has dropped, still four in 10 parents are worried about how their children are doing, and a third are having issues with access to care," said Saul Levin, MD, MPA, CEO and medical director of the APA, in a statement. "This is unacceptable, and as a nation, we need to invest in the kind of systems that will ensure any parent who's worried about their child has access to lifesaving treatment."

Barriers to Treatment

The majority of Americans (75%) said seeking mental health treatment via telehealth should be made easier, and supported the idea of funding mental health professionals in underserved communities, like rural areas. Most also supported the idea of making it easier to receive mental health care at a primary care office.

Not surprisingly, insurance coverage -- or lack thereof -- remains a barrier to mental health care. But even Americans with insurance were twice as likely to say that general medical care is easier to get covered than mental health care.

"What you see in this poll is agreement: it's hard to access mental health but we do have great solutions that could work across party lines," noted Levin. "Many policymakers, in the administration and in Congress, are already putting these ideas into action, and they should feel encouraged that the public wants to see Congress act on them."

Workplaces Paring Back

Although 78% of adults said they feel the same level or more anxiety than last year, employers seem to be offering fewer and fewer mental health resources to workers.

While 70% and 71% of workers said they know how to access mental health services through work in 2020 and 2021, respectively, this dropped down to only 60% in 2022. And although half said they feel they can talk about mental health openly with their direct supervisor, this was a decline from the 62% and 56% of workers who felt this way in 2020 and 2021, respectively. A similar decline was seen when workers were asked if they felt comfortable using mental health services provided by their current employer.

Furthermore, fewer workers said their employers are offering mental health services than they did over the past 2 years -- and fewer workers feel these benefits are sufficient:

• Employers offering an employee assistance program: 26% in 2022 vs 39% in 2020
• Primary care that offers sufficient mental health coverage: 23% in 2022 vs 34% in 2020
• Telehealth services for mental health care: 19% in 2022 vs 27% in 2020
• Mental health days: 14% in 2022 vs 18% in 2020

Despite this, far fewer folks said they were worried about retaliation from their employers for taking time off: 36% said they had this worry in 2022 compared with 52% and 48% in 2020 and 2021, respectively.

"What's troubling about the results of this poll is that even as the pandemic has continued and its mental health effects wear on, fewer employees are reporting that they have access to mental health services," commented APA President Vivian Pender, MD, in a statement. "Workplaces need to ensure that they are paying attention to what their employees need, particularly now, and moving away from mental health benefits isn't the right move."

The annual Healthy Minds Poll, which is conducted by Morning Consult, compiled online responses from 2,210 Americans in late April. Poll data were weighted to reflect a target sample of responders based on sex, age, race, education level, and region.

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