IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0267583.html

Coping with COVID-19: Differences in hope, resilience, and mental well-being across U.S. racial groups

Author

Listed:
  • Carol Graham
  • Yung Chun
  • Bartram Hamilton
  • Stephen Roll
  • Wilbur Ross
  • Michal Grinstein-Weiss

Abstract

Objectives: To explore if the COVID-19 pandemic revealed differences across racial groups in coping, resilience, and optimism, all of which have implications for health and mental well-being. Methods: We collect data obtained from four rounds of a national sample of 5,000 US survey respondents in each round from April 2020 to February 2021. Using logistic regression and fixed effects models, we estimate the pandemic impacts on COVID-19 related concerns, social distancing behaviors, and mental health/life satisfaction and optimism for racial/income groups. Results: Despite extreme income and health disparities before and during the COVID-19 outbreak, Blacks and Hispanics remain more resilient and optimistic than their White counterparts. Moreover, the greatest difference in resilience, optimism and better mental health—is found between poor Blacks and poor Whites, a difference that persists through all four rounds. Conclusions: These deep differences in resilience have implications for the long-term mental health of different population groups in the face of an unprecedented pandemic. Better understanding these dynamics may provide lessons on how to preserve mental health in the face of public health and other large-scale crises.

Suggested Citation

  • Carol Graham & Yung Chun & Bartram Hamilton & Stephen Roll & Wilbur Ross & Michal Grinstein-Weiss, 2022. "Coping with COVID-19: Differences in hope, resilience, and mental well-being across U.S. racial groups," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(5), pages 1-19, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0267583
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0267583
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267583
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0267583&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0267583?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Simon Mongey & Laura Pilossoph & Alex Weinberg, 2020. "Which Workers Bear the Burden of Social Distancing Policies?," Working Papers 2020-51, Becker Friedman Institute for Research In Economics.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bibhuti Sarker, 2025. "Factors affecting firm‐level job cuts during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A cross‐country evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(2), pages 1873-1892, April.
    2. Nicholas W. Papageorge & Matthew V. Zahn & Michèle Belot & Eline Broek-Altenburg & Syngjoo Choi & Julian C. Jamison & Egon Tripodi, 2021. "Socio-demographic factors associated with self-protecting behavior during the Covid-19 pandemic," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(2), pages 691-738, April.
    3. Houštecká, Anna & Koh, Dongya & Santaeulàlia-Llopis, Raül, 2021. "Contagion at work: Occupations, industries and human contact," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 200(C).
    4. Vanda Almeida & Salvador Barrios & Michael Christl & Silvia Poli & Alberto Tumino & Wouter Wielen, 2021. "The impact of COVID-19 on households´ income in the EU," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 19(3), pages 413-431, September.
    5. Giorgio Gnecco & Sara Landi & Massimo Riccaboni, 2024. "The emergence of social soft skill needs in the post COVID-19 era," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 647-680, February.
    6. Barrero, Jose Maria & Bloom, Nick & Davis, Steven J., 2020. "Why Working From Home Will Stick," SocArXiv wfdbe, Center for Open Science.
    7. Nicholas Bloom & Philip Bunn & Paul Mizen & Pawel Smietanka & Gregory Thwaites, 2025. "The Impact of Covid-19 on Productivity," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 107(1), pages 28-41, January.
    8. Gilles Dufrénot & Ewen Gallic & Pierre Michel & Norgile Midopkè Bonou & Ségui Gnaba & Iness Slaoui, 2024. "Impact of socioeconomic determinants on the speed of epidemic diseases: a comparative analysis," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 76(4), pages 1089-1107.
    9. Maxim Ananyev & Michael Poyker & Yuan Tian, 2021. "The safest time to fly: pandemic response in the era of Fox News," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(3), pages 775-802, July.
    10. Christian Moser & Pierre Yared, 2022. "Pandemic Lockdown: The Role of Government Commitment," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 46, pages 27-50, October.
    11. Brinca, Pedro & Duarte, Joao B. & Faria-e-Castro, Miguel, 2021. "Measuring labor supply and demand shocks during COVID-19," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    12. Alipour, Jean-Victor & Fadinger, Harald & Schymik, Jan, 2021. "My home is my castle – The benefits of working from home during a pandemic crisis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 196(C).
    13. Holgersen, Henning & Jia, Zhiyang & Svenkerud, Simen, 2021. "Who and how many can work from home? Evidence from task descriptions," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 55, pages 1-4.
    14. Suzan Abdel-Rahman & Mohamed R. Abonazel & Fuad A. Awwad & B. M. Golam Kibria, 2023. "The Impact of COVID-19-Induced Responsibilities on Women’s Employment in Arab Countries," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-18, June.
    15. Kong, Edward & Prinz, Daniel, 2020. "Disentangling policy effects using proxy data: Which shutdown policies affected unemployment during the COVID-19 pandemic?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 189(C).
    16. Han, Joseph, 2021. "Who's Hit Hardest? The Persistence of the Employment Shock by the COVID-19 Crisis," KDI Journal of Economic Policy, Korea Development Institute (KDI), vol. 43(2), pages 23-51.
    17. Henry Zhao & Zhilan Feng & Carlos Castillo-Chavez & Simon A. Levin, 2020. "Staggered Release Policies for COVID-19 Control: Costs and Benefits of Sequentially Relaxing Restrictions by Age," Papers 2005.05549, arXiv.org.
    18. Marina Azzimonti-Renzo & Alessandra Fogli & Fabrizio Perri & Mark Ponder, 2020. "Pandemic Control in ECON-EPI Networks," Staff Report 609, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    19. Allan Webster & Sangeeta Khorana & Francesco Pastore, 2021. "The labour market impact of COVID-19: early evidence for a sample of enterprises from Southern Europe," International Journal of Manpower, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 43(4), pages 1054-1082, November.
    20. Guido Matias Cortes & Eliza Forsythe, 2023. "Heterogeneous Labor Market Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 76(1), pages 30-55, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0267583. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.