Inverse - 🧠 Let’s talk about vaccinations

By Sarah Sloat

Hello, and welcome to Sunday Scaries #116! My name is Sarah Sloat, and I’m the senior science editor at Inverse. Thanks for signing up to read this chill newsletter for not-chill people.

Thank you to everyone who wrote in with their self-care advice. Scroll to the bottom to see what other Sunday Scaries readers shared.

This week’s chill icon

This week’s chill icon is Macaroni. My mom has been lobbying for Mac to be the chill icon for years but I’ve hesitated — is this corgi actually chill? 

I’m happy to say he officially is. Congratulations on passing your interview, Mac.

Have you encountered a chill icon (or icons) IRL or during your internet browsing? If so, I want to hear from you! Send an email over to sundayscaries@inverse.com and you may see them in next week’s newsletter.

Let’s talk about vaccinations

The campaign to distribute Covid-19 vaccines is an effort to combat severe illness and death. 

But according to new research, vaccinations can also boost another component of health: well-being. 

In March 2020, researchers at the Center of Economic and Social Research (CESR), a research institute at the University of Southern California, wanted to probe how the pandemic was influencing and changing Americans. One interest was evaluating how Covid-19 was influencing mental health, including perceived health risks and economic impacts. 

Ultimately, participant surveys revealed a powerful relationship: that between being vaccinated and experiencing better mental health. 

If you experienced poor mental health during Covid-19, this may feel obvious: Vaccinations mean a high chance of survival, and a return to a vague sense of normalcy. You can feel more confident hugging a grandparent, or returning to your favorite restaurant if you are vaccinated. 

But these results also speak to the determinants of vaccine hesitancy, and an unintended consequence of vaccine rollout. Research suggests people who felt more anxious about Covid-19 were more likely to get vaccinated. Appealing to the mental health benefits of immunization may be an underutilized technique in the attempt to increase vaccinations. 

And it’s likely this study is only capturing a small portion of the overall effect, explains Francisco Perez-Arce, a CESR economist. “The overall impact of the vaccination campaign on mental health may have been larger,” he tells me. 

This is because of the way the study was conducted. Overall, Perez-Arce and colleagues examined the survey responses of 8,003 adults who took part in the Understanding America Study. They were surveyed at regular intervals between March 2020 and March 2021. The participants were asked about two main factors: 

• Their self-reported mental distress
• Their Covid-19 vaccination status 

The study team, in turn, found that receiving the first Covid-19 vaccine resulted in “significant improvements in mental health, beyond improvements already achieved since mental distress peaked in the spring of 2020.” Those who did not receive the vaccine did not see similar improvements in mental health. 

But there’s nuance here: The results only capture the reduction in mental distress among the people in this survey during this specific time period, not the overall effect of the vaccination campaign. Meanwhile, among those who weren’t vaccinated during the study period, were both people who were eligible but hesitant, and people who were not eligible. But both were placed in the “never vaccinated” group. 

Perez-Arce provides himself as an example: 

“I wasn’t vaccinated during the study period because I was not yet eligible,” he tells me. “So, if I had been a respondent of the survey, I would be in the “control” group, but I certainly was becoming relieved from fears and experiencing less worry just by knowing that family, neighbors, my health care providers, my children’s teachers, etcetera, were getting vaccinated.”

The results offer a stark contrast to other studies conducted earlier in the pandemic: In a 2021 study published in the journal Perspectives on Psychological Science, researchers argue psychological factors like stress, depression, and loneliness can impair the immune system’s responses to vaccines. 

“Recent data suggest these psychological and behavioral risk factors are highly prevalent during the Covid-19 pandemic,” write the researchers, “but intervention research suggests that psychological and behavioral interventions can increase vaccine efficacy.” 

It remains to be seen whether similar interventions could also increase vaccine acceptance — but it’s an interesting line of thought:

Would more people be vaccinated if they could count on it easing some mental health burdens? Would that vaccine improve overall health in two ways? 

For now, Perez-Arce is concentrating more on the effect of the pandemic on mental health. 

“It is important to understand the — likely multiple — mechanisms through which the pandemic has affected mental health in the population,” he says. “This study shows the important role that reducing risks through vaccination can play to improve mental health.”

Now look at this oddly satisfying thing

She*’s perfect. 

*Seven-layer jello.

See more →

What I’m reading this week

Distract yourself from the scaries with these reads:

• 4 ways the climate crisis is causing animals to ‘shapeshift.’  Scientists explain the bizarre ways animal bodies adapt to a warming world.
• After 10,000 years of extinction, this is when woolly mammoths will walk the Earth again. The question is — should they? 
• What crashed into Jupiter? Something smacked the gas giant.
  

And if it’s midnight and you’re still feeling the scaries . . . 

• Watch this incredible catch. Spoiler: It ends well!
  

How do you practice self-care?

Here’s what some Sunday Scaries readers advise: 

Carolyn: “Instead of catching up on the news, I start each day with something positive — music or reading or brief viewing.” Carolyn also writes and shares “a daily affirmation, ending with ‘living fully in the present.’” 

Anonymous: “Day trip out of the city with a friend. No social media, no texting. Just hanging out. Exploring.” 

Susan: “With returning to the office and trying to balance a new, normal life coming out of Covid, I am trying to return to my pre-pandemic routine of working out every morning… I have come to the conclusion that the transition to a new normal life is just going to take time, and time for my body and my mind to adjust.” 

Fran: “Watching the birds at the feeder! In the here and now!”

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