An international study published this year in PLOS Medicine measured the health impacts of the COVID pandemic, based on a survey of over 15,000 people in 13 countries. It found that the pandemic resulted in worse health for more than a third of respondents. Anxiety and depression exacted the biggest cost, especially among young people aged under 35. The authors say that only focusing on COVID cases and deaths overlooks this larger burden of the pandemic and the impacts of policies to control it.
The researchers used a measure known as the quality-adjusted life year (QALY), a generic indicator of disease burden, with scores ranging from 1 (perfect health) to 0 (death), together with data on COVID deaths. Such surveys enable researchers to begin to disentangle the effects of lockdowns and other policies from the impacts of COVID. The researchers found the health impacts of the COVID pandemic and lockdowns were between five and eleven times larger than the COVID-related deaths alone. Moving beyond counting deaths to understanding the overall health of the population globally can help us to be better prepared for potential future health shocks, they say.
