Research project
The role of the neighbourhood environment in shaping the mental health consequences of Covid-19
- Start date: 1 November 2020
- End date: 31 July 2022
- Funder: UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)
- Principal investigator: Dr Muhammad Waqas (University of Bradford)
- Co-investigators: Professor Peter Howley Dr Gaston Yalonetzky
Description
This research tested to what extent features of the neighbourhood environment moderate the mental health consequences associated with the coronavirus pandemic. While undoubtedly any mental health impact will be partly shaped by individual characteristics, we also posited that there will be differential vulnerability across people due to their neighbourhood environment. Simply put, our contention is that the impact of this pandemic on people's mental health is shaped not just by who they are but also where they live.
Our starting point was Understanding Society (UKHLS), a survey that collects online data relating to people's mental health. Each individual had a unique identifier whcih enabled us to track their mental health before, during and after the lockdown, and indeed monitor their mental health on an ongoing long-term basis.
Of particular importance for this project was the geographic identifier attached to each individual in the survey. This geographic identifier allowed us to identify the local authority in which each individual lived (391 of these in the UK) and through a special licence application, the lower super output area commonly referred to as the neighbourhood (over 32,000 of these in the UK). Using these identifiers, we spatially linked our longitudinal household survey datasets recording individuals’ mental health with a variety of publically available datasets relating to neighbourhood contextual information (e.g. economic and social deprivation, population density, environmental capital, health services etc.). This allowed us to identify what makes some neighbourhoods produce better outcomes than others.
Ultimately, our research helped in identifying those most vulnerable to the coronavirus pandemic and in formulating place-based policy interventions aimed at protecting people’s mental health.
This project was funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), as part of UK Research and Innovation’s rapid response to Covid-19.
Related project: The relationship between immigration and subjective well-being in the UK
Publications and outputs
Journal articles:
- "Locked down in distress: A quasi-experimental estimation of the mental-health fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic", Economic Inquiry, Lina Anaya, Peter Howley, Muhammad Waqas, Gaston Yalonetzky. October 2023.
Blog posts and media coverage:
- "Five years on: How COVID-19 research shaped policy and practice", Leeds University Business School Research and Innovation Blog, March 2025
- "The covid-19 pandemic affected mental health in the UK. How do we know? Timely data.", UK Data Service, March 2024
- "Locked down in distress: how did the initial Covid-19 wave affect mental health in the UK?", Leeds University Business School Research and Innovation Blog, February 2024
- "How did the initial COVID-19 wave affect mental health in the UK?", Eureka Alert, October 2023
- "Lockdown blues: Study reveals stark impact of COVID-19 on mental health in the UK", News Medical Life Sciences, October 2023
Previous event:
- Workshop on mental health and the Covid-19 pandemic, April 2022