COVID-19 pandemic risk, response and resilience on social isolation and mental health

The new Coronavirus (COVID-19) is a highly contagious disease that was discovered near the end of 2019. COVID-19 has been conceptualized as a ‘gero-pandemic,’ defined as a disease that has spread globally with heightened significance and deleterious consequences for older populations. Older people are particularly vulnerable to the deleterious health impacts of the pandemic, including social isolation and loneliness, anxiety, and depression due to risk and mitigation efforts (e.g., physical/social distancing measures, closure of community spaces). This project investigates risk and protective factors, with a focus on social isolation on both resilience and on depressive symptoms, among Canadian older adults pre- and peri-pandemic. This will be accomplished by linking all available CLSA data to date: Baseline, Follow-up 1 (FUP1), COVID-19 Baseline, COVID-19 Exit survey data, and FUP2.