Is Stress Really at "Alarming" Levels?

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I recently read a press release from the American Psychological Association from March 2022 claiming that “inflation, money issues, and the war in Ukraine have pushed U.S. stress to alarming levels” (emphasis added). There is no dispute that these issues likely are perceived as stressors by many people. However, is it really the case that such issues have caused alarming levels of stress?

To answer this question, we need to know what the Stress in America 2022 report actually says. Locating the data on actual stress levels was a challenge, as there is no easily identifiable chart that presents this information. However, about three-quarters of the way down, I located this sentence: “U.S. adults overall reported an average current stress level related to the COVID-19 pandemic of 5.0 on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 means you have ‘little or no stress’ and 10 means you have ‘a great deal of stress.’” On its face, this means that a mean of 5 (on a 10-point scale), which likely relates to a moderate amount of stress, is to be interpreted as “alarming levels.” That seems to be a bit melodramatic to me.

But maybe what APA meant was that stress levels were higher than they have been in a while. On its face, that claim would seem questionable, as one would expect that stress levels would have been substantially higher in the early stages of the pandemic.¹ In fact, if you look at Stress in America 2020 (Volume 1) from April/May 2020, the same poll reported that average U.S. adult stress levels were 5.9.

So, apparently, stress levels really aren’t at alarming rates after all, and they are certainly lower than they were at the beginning of the pandemic. In fact, it seems COVID stress wasn’t the most stressful experience in the last two decades—at least if APA polling data of U.S. adults is to be believed. A look at poll results from 2007 to present shows that stress levels were larger back in 2007 and 2008 than they were in 2021, and the 2022 average of 5.0 looks to be fairly on par with 2021 results.²

I also found it interesting that, according to the 2022 poll results, more people reported inflation (at 87 percent) and the Russian invasion of Ukraine (80 percent) to be a source of stress than reported the economy to be a source of stress in April/May 2020 (70 percent). Perhaps it is an idiosyncrasy of polling; perhaps the media attention being brought to the issue of inflation and Ukraine (especially on social media) is playing a role;³ or perhaps in April/May 2020, a greater number of people were more concerned about the potential health threat posed by COVID⁴ than were worried about the economy (those worries may have come later).⁵

The takeaway point here is that there very likely isn’t some sort of alarming level of stress that people are currently experiencing. In fact, the data would suggest that stress levels are not really any higher (and may be lower) than they have been in the recent past. Do people have concerns about inflation and the invasion of Ukraine (and perhaps what it could mean for global stability)? The APA poll results would suggest that answer is yes. Do these concerns necessarily result in higher levels of perceived stress (relative to other concerns)? That answer is a resounding no, at least for the time being.