Black adults with long COVID report higher levels of hopelessness and suicidal thoughts − new research

Black Americans with long COVID reported more physical ailments than concern over mental illness. fizkes/iStock via Getty Images Plus by Janelle R. Goodwill, University of Chicago and Tiwaloluwa Ajibewa, Northwestern University Black adults living with long COVID pointed to challenges with their physical health – rather than their mental health – when asked to describe their long-COVID symptoms. That is one key finding from our new study, published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities. When we examined the data further, however, we found that those living with long COVID in the U.S. had significantly more anxiety, depression, hopelessness, psychosis and suicidal thoughts than those without long COVID. In other words, while participants clearly explained how long COVID impaired their physical health, they were less likely to attribute their recent mental health struggles to any issues stemming from their experiences of long COVID. For the study, we asked nearly 500 Black adults in the U.S. to respond to a series of psychological questionnaires measuring various mental health outcomes in the spring of 2022. All participants, regardless of their long-COVID status, provided responses to these survey questions. Next, we asked study participants to describe their long-COVID symptoms by using...