The Relationship of School Modality With Stress and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Variation Across Sociodemographic Groups

The COVID-19 pandemic and school closures adversely affected adolescents’ mental health and well-being, with the weight of evidence indicating worse outcomes for students attending school remotely or in a hybrid modality compared to fully in person. We leverage survey data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development SM Study (ABCD Study ® ) collected from 6,245 adolescents (mean age = 13.2) during the 2020–2021 school year to investigate the moderating effects of race/ethnicity, household income, and neighborhood disadvantage on the relationship between 2020–2021 school modality and outcomes including perceived stress, sadness, and positive affect. For relatively advantaged students, our results corroborate prior findings that students in remote or hybrid schooling report worse mental health outcomes than students who attended fully in person. However, this pattern between schooling modality and mental health disappears or reverses for relatively disadvantaged students. Given substantial within-group variation, these findings underscore the importance of considering varied student needs in developing mental health supports.