Generalized Anxiety Disorder Prevalence and Disparities Among U.S. Adults: The Roles Played by Job Loss, Food Insecurity, and Vaccinations During the COVID-19 Pandemic

ObjectivesThe purposes of this study are to examine (i) to what extent job loss and food insecurity accounted for racial disparities in generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) risk among adults in the United States during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic; and (ii) to what extent the COVID-19 vaccination mitigated such risk, especially among older adults.MethodsFirst, we analyzed data from the U.S. Household Pulse Survey to report on the relative prevalence of GAD with respect to demographic characteristics, economic hardships, and COVID-19 vaccine status. We then adopted a series of logistic regression models to estimate the probabilities of having GAD by sequentially adding these possible explanatory factors.ResultsFindings demonstrated higher prevalence rates of GAD among Hispanic and non-Hispanic Black Americans than non-Hispanic White Americans, which can primarily be attributed to the fact that non-Hispanic White Americans were less vulnerable to job loss and food insecurity. Older adults were less susceptible to GAD than their middle-aged and young adult counterparts. Compared to unvaccinated older adults, the odds of having GAD were substantially reduced for older adults who were partially vaccinated, and even more significantly declined for fully vaccinated older adults.DiscussionRacial and ethnic disparities in GAD were largely due to disproportionate experiences of job loss and food insecurity across different racial and ethnic groups during the pandemic. Social distancing measures partially explain the different prevalence of GAD between older adults and their counterparts. Rapid deployment of the COVID-19 vaccines played an effective role in suppressing GAD, especially among older adults.