The Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the United Kingdom: An update.

This paper extends earlier on socioeconomic inequality in mental health, measured by the General Health Questionnaire, to include the second national lockdown up to March 2021.

Weather, mental health, and mobility during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the first United Kingdom wave of the COVID-19 outbreak, the first lockdown was announced on March 23, 2020, with a final easing of the restrictions on July 4, 2020. Among the most important public health costs of lockdown restrictions are the potential adverse effects on mental health and physical activity. Using data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study and Google COVID-19 Mobility Reports we find evidence of reduced park mobility during the initial period of the first UK lockdown and confirm existing evidence of worsening mental health. Linkage with weather data shows that contrary to popular belief, daily or weekly weather conditions do not exacerbate the mental health consequences of the pandemic, as we found no systematic associations during the first lockdown period; on the other hand, we find systematic links between park mobility and weather over the same period.

The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress in the UK.

We use data from the UK Household Longitudinal Study (UKHLS) to compare measures of socioeconomic inequality in psychological distress, measured by the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ), before (Waves 9 and the Interim 2019 Wave) and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (April to July 2020). Based on a caseness measure, the prevalence of psychological distress increased from 18.5% to 27.7% between the 2019 Wave and April 2020 with some reversion to earlier levels in subsequent months. Also, there was a systematic increase in total inequality in the Likert GHQ-12 score. However, measures of relative socioeconomic inequality have not increased. A Shapley-Shorrocks decomposition analysis shows that during the peak of the first wave of the pandemic (April 2020) other socioeconomic factors declined in their share of socioeconomic inequality, while age and gender account for a larger share. The most notable increase is evident for younger women. The contribution of working in an industry related to the COVID-19 response played a small role at Wave 9 and the Interim 2019 Wave, but more than tripled its share in April 2020. As the first wave of COVID-19 progressed, the contribution of demographics declined from their peak level in April and chronic health conditions, housing conditions, and neighbourhood characteristics increased their contributions to socioeconomic inequality.

Unmet health care need and income-Related horizontal equity in use of health care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using monthly data from the Understanding Society (UKHLS) COVID-19 Survey we analyse the evolution of unmet need and assess how the UK health care system performed against the principle of horizontal equity in health care use during the first wave of COVID-19 wave. Unmet need was most evident for hospital care, and less pronounced for primary health services (non-emergency medical helplines, GP consultations, community pharmacist advice, over the counter medications and prescriptions). Despite this, there is no evidence that horizontal equity, with respect to income, was violated for NHS hospital outpatient and inpatient care during the first wave of the pandemic. There is evidence of pro-rich inequities in use of GP consultations, prescriptions and medical helplines at the peak of the first wave, but these were eliminated as the pandemic progressed. There are persistent pro-rich inequities for services that may relate to individuals' ability to pay (over the counter medications and advice from community pharmacists).