COVID Anniversary Anxiety Is Real — Here’s How to Cope

Roxane Cohen Silver, PhD, a professor of psychological science, medicine, and public health at University of California Irvine, has led multiple studies examining the mental health impact of national disasters, and in September testified to Congress on the “cascading collective trauma” effect of COVID, climate crises, and social injustice. Calling the past year “unlike anything I’ve ever studied,” she believes that, rather than an anniversary reaction, what many are now grappling with is the cumulative mental health impact of an extreme and continuing “chronic stressor.”