Worldwide Universities Network cross-regional study on socioeconomic inequities in psychological well-being among adolescents
A study led by researchers from CUHK, Maastricht University, and Zhejiang University examines socioeconomic inequities in psychological well-being.
A study conducted by an international team led by Prof. Roger Chung, Prof. Wong Hung and Prof. Gary Chung of the CUHK Institute of Health Equity compared the extent of socioeconomic inequalities in the change in psychosocial well-being among adolescents due to COVID-19 and the mediating pathways across three regions with distinct social contexts. The study was supported by the Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) Research Development Fund in 2020 and involved researchers from CUHK, Maastricht University in the Netherlands, and Zhejiang University in the Chinese mainland.
Adolescents faced significant challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic during their critical developmental period. Existing research revealed deterioration in their mental health and psychosocial well-being under lockdowns and other stringent containment measures. In particular, disadvantaged adolescents are affected more severely due to a lack of resources and opportunities to cope with pandemic-related stressors.
To gain a better understanding of the impacts of COVID-19 on the psychosocial well-being among young people and explore how and why the situations differ across the world, the study surveyed over 3,500 junior secondary school students in Hong Kong, Zhejiang, and Limburg between late 2021 and early 2022 about their socioeconomic position, psychosocial factors, and well-being. Results showed that students in Zhejiang generally fared better than those in Hong Kong and Limburg during the pandemic, with even an indication of a positive change in psychosocial well-being and better overall scores in most psychosocial outcomes and factors on average. Although the overall change in psychosocial well-being in Hong Kong and the Netherlands was almost neutral, this finding should be interpreted with the observed significant socioeconomic inequality being taken into account, which showed that the psychosocial well-being among the socioeconomically disadvantaged students has generally worsened, while their advantaged counterparts were more likely to have experienced a positive change during the study period.
The research team speculated that the better performance and relatively low inequalities in psychosocial well-being among students in Zhejiang could plausibly be attributed to the lower spread of COVID-19 during the study period. In contrast, in the Netherlands, the high level of unpredictability of daily life under rapidly changing social restrictions to contain COVID-19 could impose extra psychosocial burden on the adolescents, especially for those from poorer families. The Nordic paradox (i.e. higher level of inequalities despite extensive universal welfare systems) also seemed to hold true given the greatest extent of socioeconomic inequalities in psychosocial outcomes observed in the Netherlands.
Moderated mediation analyses highlighted the critical mediating roles of learning difficulty and resilience of students in Hong Kong and Zhejiang. Strategies to support remote learning for the socioeconomically disadvantaged and resilience-building programmes for better disaster preparedness should be adopted as a universal approach to improve psychosocial well-being and its socioeconomic inequalities among students. Nonetheless, since the psychosocial factors included in this study could explain only a small proportion of the observed inequalities in the Netherlands, further studies are warranted to explore the context-specific mechanisms behind the disproportionate impact of the pandemic.
As the United Nations’ Inter-agency Network on Youth Development emphasises, sustainable recovery from COVID-19 is possible only if young people are reached and included. Identifying the health and social conditions that are most severely affected by the pandemic among young people across the socioeconomic ladder will inform targeted public health interventions in mitigating inequalities induced by the pandemic.