WORCSTER—Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, a senior research scholar at Clark University and the originator of the theory of emerging adulthood, has published an insightful new article in the Journal of Adult Development. Titled “COVID-19 and Americans’ Mental Health: A Persistent Crisis, Especially for Emerging Adults 18 to 29,” the study explores how young adults have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic’s mental health impacts.
Using extensive national data, Arnett compared mental health trends from before the pandemic through the summer of 2024. His findings reveal that while anxiety and depression rates spiked across all adult age groups in 2020, emerging adults experienced the steepest and most persistent increases. Even in 2024, rates of anxiety symptoms among 18- to 29-year-olds remain over 30%, while depression symptoms exceed 20% — multiples higher than pre-pandemic levels.
“Few studies have pre-COVID data as a comparison, and we haven’t seen any that include 2023, much less 2024,” said Arnett. He emphasized that this age group’s unique developmental challenges, such as identity formation and striving for financial independence, may have heightened their vulnerability to the pandemic’s disruptions.
The study draws on data from the National Health Interview Survey (2019) and the Household Pulse Survey (2020 onward). It underscores an urgent need to address mental health distress and the unmet demand for mental health treatment across all age groups. “Emerging adults may have been especially vulnerable,” Arnett wrote, “because of the disruption to distinctive developmental processes.”
This work continues Arnett’s groundbreaking research into emerging adulthood, a developmental period he first identified as spanning ages 18 to 29. His contributions shed light on the unique struggles of this age group, particularly in the face of unprecedented global challenges like the COVID-19 pandemic.
Read the full study here: COVID-19 and Americans’ Mental Health
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