By Michael Dadson, PhD, RCC, CCC
Originally published October 7, 2021. Evidence reviewed November 14, 2026.
When I first wrote about youth mental health in 2021, I was concerned about what happened when young people lost access to many of the people, places and routines they counted on. School, work and time with friends ordinarily give young people somewhere to belong and room to become more independent. When several of those parts of life change at once, it can be hard to know what has been lost or when it might return. What did the pandemic change in young people’s lives, and what can the research tell us about their emotional well-being?
Studies that followed children and teenagers over time found that depressive symptoms increased on average during the pandemic, while anxiety symptoms rose by less. Experiences varied considerably, and the early comparison with pre-pandemic research did not show that diagnoses doubled.
What did the early research find?
The International Labour Organization’s 2020 report focused on young adults aged 18 to 29. More than 12,000 people from 112 countries responded. They described disruptions to work and education alongside concerns about their well-being. The online survey reached many countries, but it overrepresented more educated young adults with internet access. It gives us a picture of what those respondents were facing.
In a separate 2021 review in JAMA Pediatrics, Racine and colleagues pooled 29 studies involving 80,879 children and adolescents. In those early pandemic samples, an estimated 25.2% scored in the clinically elevated range for depressive symptoms and 20.5% for anxiety symptoms. These figures reflect questionnaire scores. A score above a threshold can signal significant distress; it cannot by itself establish a diagnosis.
The estimates were roughly twice those reported in earlier research. That comparison helped draw attention to the distress young people were reporting. Most of the early studies measured symptoms at one point in time. The comparison used different samples, so it could not tell us whether rates of diagnosed disorders doubled in the same children or how much of the difference came from any one disruption.
What did studies that followed young people over time add?
In 2023, Madigan and colleagues brought together 53 studies representing 40,807 children and adolescents. Comparing symptoms before and during the pandemic, they found an average increase in depressive symptoms and a smaller increase in anxiety symptoms. A later review by Elgendi and colleagues, published online in June 2026, found a modest average increase in symptoms such as anxiety and depression, with substantial variation across studies. Increases tended to be larger in studies of settings with full school closures. That association does not isolate the effect of closures from other changes occurring at the same time.
Some studies also found stability or improvement. In a 2024 U.S. study of 1,229 young people, parents reported small changes overall, with some symptoms improving. A 2025 review of young people with existing mental health or neurodevelopmental conditions found mixed results and limitations in the evidence. An average can tell us what happened across a group while leaving much of any one young person’s experience unexplained.
What did young people in Canada report?
Statistics Canada followed respondents who were 12 to 17 years old in 2019. The proportion who rated their own mental health as fair or poor rose from 12% in 2019 to 26% in 2023, when they were 16 to 21. The survey asked young people to rate their overall mental health. It did not measure depression or anxiety symptoms the way the earlier studies did. Over those four years, they were also growing older and making transitions in school, work and relationships. The survey cannot tell us how much of the change was due to the pandemic.
What can we take from this?
One question I would ask a young person is what they miss about the life they had before things changed. The answer might tell us about a relationship, a sense of belonging, or a future they had been looking forward to. I would also want to hear what helped them get through that time and what still feels difficult now. Those details can help us understand what kind of support would matter to them.
If you’re looking for help for yourself or a young person you care about, HealthLink BC lists mental health resources and ways to find support in British Columbia. The studies discussed here measured changes in well-being and symptoms; they did not test which treatments help.
