Young people, mental health, and civil conflict: Preliminary findings from Ethiopia's Tigray region

We examine the association between mental health and violent conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region. Two longitudinal phone-surveys (08/2020–10/2020; 11/2020–01/2021) interviewed 122 young people in Tigray. We use t-tests for the difference in means outcomes between calls to investigate how their...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Favara, M, Hittmeyer, A, Porter, C, Singhal, S, Woldehanna, T
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022
Description
Summary:We examine the association between mental health and violent conflict in Ethiopia's Tigray region. Two longitudinal phone-surveys (08/2020–10/2020; 11/2020–01/2021) interviewed 122 young people in Tigray. We use t-tests for the difference in means outcomes between calls to investigate how their mental health evolved before and after the outbreak of conflict (11/2020). Post-outbreak rates of anxiety (34%) were three times higher than 2–3 months before. Similarly, rates of depression increased significantly from 16% to 25%. Males experienced greater increases in anxiety, females in depression. Mental health issues have likely worsened further during the ongoing conflict, making mental health support urgently needed.