• Posted December 9, 2025

Pandemic School Closures Linked To More Mental Health Problems Among Kids

School closures are linked to significant mental health problems – depression, anxiety, ADHD – among children during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study reports.

Kids whose schools reopened sooner during the pandemic had lower rates of mental health problems than those whose schools remained closed, researchers reported Dec. 8 in the journal Epidemiology.

Girls in particular benefitted from going back to school, the study found.

“Our results provide solid evidence to parents, educators, and policymakers that in-person school plays a crucial role in kids’ well-being,” senior researcher Dr. Rita Hamad, a professor of social epidemiology and public policy at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a news release.

“The findings offer lessons for future public health emergencies and provide insight into why mental health worsened for children during the pandemic,” she said.

Previous studies have shown that mental health among kids suffered during the pandemic. Although pundits have chalked this up in part to school closures, little detailed research has been performed to see whether or not that’s true, researchers said.

For this study, researchers analyzed the health records of more than 185,700 kids between 5 and 18 years of age between March 2020 and June 2021. They focused on whether kids received mental health care or received a prescription for a mental disorder.

The children lived in 24 counties and 224 school districts across California, where schools stayed closed longer than almost any other state, researchers said.

The schools also reopened on a staggered basis, allowing an easy comparison between those that opened their doors sooner and those that held off.

Overall, the percentage of kids with a mental health diagnosis increased from 2.8% to 3.5% during the study period.

But children had a 43% lower risk of a mental health diagnosis following their school reopening, compared to the shutdown period, the study found.

By the ninth month after reopening, medical spending on students’ mental health problems had decreased by 11%, spending on psychiatric drugs by 8%, and spending on ADHD-specific drugs by 5%, researchers said.

These effects were stronger among girls than boys, researchers said.

Children’s mental health might have flagged due to less social interaction among friends, irregular sleep patterns, increased screen time, less healthy diet, learning difficulties or less access to mental health services available through school, the research team speculated.

Kids might also have suffered from being cooped up at home with their parents and siblings, particularly if mom or dad had lost their job due to the pandemic, researchers said.

“As we consider future public health emergencies, this study suggests we need to prioritize safe school reopenings and ensure children have access to the social and emotional resources that schools provide,” Hamad said. “Policies should focus not only on infection control, but also on the mental well-being of children, recognizing that schools are a critical part of their support system.”

More information

The National Alliance on Mental Illness has more on mental health in schools.

SOURCE: Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, news release, Dec. 8, 2025