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Public health
Cohort profile
Cohort profile: the COVID-19 Coping Study, a longitudinal mixed-methods study of middle-aged and older adults’ mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA
  1. Lindsay C Kobayashi1,
  2. Brendan Q O’Shea1,
  3. Jasdeep S Kler1,
  4. Raphael Nishimura2,
  5. Caroline B Palavicino-Maggio3,
  6. Marisa R Eastman1,
  7. Yamani Rikia Vinson1,4,
  8. Jessica M Finlay5
  1. 1Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, Department of Epidemiology, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
  2. 2Survey Research Center, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
  3. 3Department of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  4. 4Department of Health Management and Policy, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
  5. 5Social Environment and Health Program, Survey Research Center, University of Michigan Institute for Social Research, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA
  1. Correspondence to Dr Lindsay C Kobayashi; lkob{at}umich.edu

Abstract

Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic, beginning in early 2020, has resulted in massive social, economic, political and public health upheaval around the world. We established a national longitudinal cohort study, the COVID-19 Coping Study, to investigate the effects of pandemic-related stressors and changes in life circumstances on mental health and well-being among middle-aged and older adults in the USA.

Participants From 2 April to 31 May 2020, 6938 adults aged ≥55 years were recruited from all 50 US states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico using online, multi-frame non-probability-based sampling.

Findings to date Mean age of the baseline sample was 67.3 years (SD: 7.9 years) and 64% were women. Two in three adults reported leaving home only for essential purposes in the past week (population-weighted proportion: 69%; 95% CI: 68% to 71%). Nearly one in five workers aged 55–64 years was placed on a leave of absence or furloughed since the start of the pandemic (17%; 95% CI: 14% to 20%), compared with one in three workers aged ≥75 years (31%; 95% CI: 21% to 44%). Nearly one-third of adults screened positive for each of depression (32%; 95% CI: 30% to 34%), anxiety (29%; 28% to 31%) and loneliness (29%; 95% CI: 27% to 31%), with decreasing prevalence of each with increasing age.

Future plans Monthly and annual follow-ups of the COVID-19 Coping Study cohort will assess longitudinal changes to mental health, cognitive health and well-being in relation to social, behavioural, economic and other COVID-19-related changes to life circumstances. Quantitative and in-depth qualitative interview data will be collected through online questionnaires and telephone interviews. Cohort data will be archived for public use.

  • COVID-19
  • epidemiology
  • mental health
  • public health
  • qualitative research
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2020-044965

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    Footnotes

    • Twitter @EpiKobayashi

    • Contributors LCK and JMF conceived of, designed and supervised the COVID-19 Coping Study. RN and CBP-M contributed to the study design. JSK and CBP-M conducted data collection. BQO, LCK and RN conducted the statistical analyses. JSK and MRE contributed to the statistical analyses. LCK, JMF, RN and YRV drafted the manuscript. All authors contributed to the interpretation of data, revision of the manuscript for important intellectual content and have read and approved of the final version of the manuscript.

    • Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

    • Map disclaimer The depiction of boundaries on this map does not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of BMJ (or any member of its group) concerning the legal status of any country, territory, jurisdiction or area or of its authorities. This map is provided without any warranty of any kind, either express or implied.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Ethics approval The University of Michigan Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board approved the COVID-19 Coping Study protocol (HUM00179632).

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data availability statement Data are available upon reasonable request. Deidentified non-geographic data are available upon reasonable request through collaboration. Please contact LCK (lkob@umich.edu) or JMF (jmfinlay@umich.edu). In 2021, the study data will be archived for public use at the Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), maintained by the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan.

    • Supplemental material This content has been supplied by the author(s). It has not been vetted by BMJ Publishing Group Limited (BMJ) and may not have been peer-reviewed. Any opinions or recommendations discussed are solely those of the author(s) and are not endorsed by BMJ. BMJ disclaims all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on the content. Where the content includes any translated material, BMJ does not warrant the accuracy and reliability of the translations (including but not limited to local regulations, clinical guidelines, terminology, drug names and drug dosages), and is not responsible for any error and/or omissions arising from translation and adaptation or otherwise.