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Torstein Bøe / NRK
Dr Ebrahimi, a Career Development Research Fellow at Oxford, received the prestigious award for his doctoral thesis 'The Covid-19 Pandemic as a Critical Incident and its Impact on Depression'. With his doctoral project spanning over 37 high-impact studies in this field, Dr Ebrahimi’s research has provided crucial insights into which groups are most vulnerable to mental health problems during crises, and reveals the psychological mechanisms underlying these challenges.
From 2020 to 2023, Dr Ebrahimi conducted an extensive longitudinal study and natural experiment involving up to 10,000 adults, examining how major contextual stressors accompanying the pandemic, such as infection rates and social distancing measures, affected mental health and behaviour throughout the global infectious disease outbreak. His research offers one of the first and most comprehensive accounts of the psychological impact of COVID-19 restrictions, their optimal usage, and pathways forward in mitigating infection while protecting mental health. For these efforts, he received the Early-Career Award by the International Council of Psychologists “to recognize outstanding early career contributions to scholarly endeavors addressing psychological issues of a universal or multinational significance”.
"It's easy to forget what it was like at the start of the pandemic," Dr Ebrahimi reflects. "We did not know much about how contagious or deadly the virus was. We experienced empty streets and empty store shelves, and workplaces and schools closed. People were worried about infection and its risks, and we had to implement multiple viral mitigation strategies, or social distancing protocols, to protect our health."
One of the thesis's main discoveries was the link between social distancing measures and depressive symptoms in the population. Dr Ebrahimi's study was among the first to establish this connection, demonstrating that the stricter and longer the measures lasted, the higher and more prolonged the depressive symptom burden became.
Interestingly, the research revealed different patterns for different mental health domains. In contrast to depression, anxiety was unrelated to distancing protocols, and more closely tied to infection rates in the community. “The good news is that this meant that when restrictions were to be lifted, depressive symptoms would decrease for the majority of individuals in the population, something we later found support for in our longitudinal follow-ups”, says Dr Ebrahimi.
However, approximately seven percent of the population, without any pre-existing challenges, developed long-lasting mental health problems during the pandemic. This group was predominantly composed of people living alone and those from ethnic minority backgrounds, potentially due to language barriers and confusion during the early stages when information was crucial. Many individuals in this subgroup reported later treatment seeking, which Dr Ebrahimi linked to post-pandemic treatment queues, increasing the burden on healthcare systems.
To uncover the psychological mechanisms underlying adverse changes in those experiencing it, Dr Ebrahimi conducted an innovative intensive longitudinal study of nearly 2,000 people measured over 40 days per person during a lockdown period. This revealed that loneliness and learned helplessness—the feeling of having no control over one's environment—were the strongest predictors of depression.
"Loneliness activates similar brain regions as physical pain", Dr Ebrahimi explains. "This discomfort is there to motivate us to return to the group, which in our evolutionary context has increased our survival chances, highlighting the adaptive value of loneliness. During periods involving strict distancing measures, we did not have the opportunity to return to our peers. This reduced impact on one’s immediate environment was linked to perceived helplessness, a psychological mechanism strongly connected to depression."
Now leading his own research team at University of Oxford, The Oxford EDGE Lab, Dr Ebrahimi focuses on global and societal crises impact mental health and human behaviour. His current projects include extensive research on economic downturns, and a study in Ukraine tracking the mechanisms that lead both promote and can protect against mental illness during war.
Dr Ebrahimi’s pandemic research is still active. "We know there will be another pandemic, we just don't know when," says Dr Ebrahimi. His team is part of an international collaboration involving over 40 countries, working to identify which measures were most effective at reducing infectious spread, while being least intrusive on mental health. “One key challenge during the pandemic concerned the implementation of many viral mitigation protocols simultaneously. This limited an opportunity to map out which of these strategies were most effective for reducing infection, while being least invasive for mental health. Leveraging cross-country data in our international consortium allows us to isolate the effects of specific distancing protocols, helping us better prepare for the next infectious disease outbreak”.
"Psychological processes play a critical role in how we meet and shape our environment when crises occur," he concludes. "There is still much left to know about the extent to which different crises lead to similar or differential outcomes, and understanding this can help us better prepare for future crises by extrapolating relevant insights from the past, rather than needing to learn to adapt to new challenges as they arise."
The research not only provides valuable lessons for future pandemic preparedness, but also demonstrates the critical importance of maintaining social connections during times of crisis—a finding that will inform public health policy for years to come.
Dr Ebrahimi’s research has garnered extensive interest over the years, with media coverage in over 70 national and international news outlets, including live news, radio, television, and major newspapers, resulting in the Research Communication Award already in the first year of his PhD (2020).