Racialized exposure to multiple COVID-19 deaths and their consequences for mental health

Abstract

COVID-19 unleashed a bereavement crisis on a scale unseen in over a century. While evidence suggests COVID-19 deaths are acutely damaging to well-being, it is unclear how multiple losses affect mental health, whether there are ethnoracial differences in cumulative loss, or if the association between multiple COVID-related deaths and psychological distress varies by race-ethnicity. Using national survey data (n = 1810) collected following the Omicron surge in the United States, we estimate a series of regression models to assess the association between multiple COVID-19 losses and psychological distress, racial-ethnic differences in aggregate death exposure, and differential vulnerability to multiple losses across racial-ethnic groups. We find that each additional COVID-19 death is linked to elevated depressive symptoms, anxiety, and anger. Bivariate analyses further indicate Black and Latine respondents experienced significantly more COVID-19 losses relative to White and Asian respondents, although the difference between Latine and Asian participants was attenuated following adjustment for sociodemographic factors. Whereas COVID-19 losses do not hold stronger associations with distress among Black or Asian respondents relative to White participants, the magnitude of the association between COVID-19 bereavement and each measure of distress is significantly larger among Latine respondents relative to their Black and White counterparts. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding the racialized nature of pandemic loss and its psychological sequelae.