2CSE Department, Miami University, Oxford, OH, United States
The American Psychological Association (APA) reports 81% of Gen Z teens (ages 13–17) have experienced more intense stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses a survey-based approach along with robust statistical analyses to identify key stressors from a set of students in a high school in Midwest United States. Our survey includes a broad range of stressors (15 explanatory variables) specific to high schoolers, controls (4 factors for pre-existing conditions), and mental health estimators (7 dependent variables) to identify changes in mental wellbeing during the pandemic. The results (
n = 107) show good consistency in our estimators (Cronbach’s α = 0.78) and statistically significant (t = 0.636,