Mental health challenges, economic insecurity, and parental abuse became a routine part of life for a staggering share of high school students during the pandemic, data released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show.

More than a third of high school students reported experiencing poor mental health during the pandemic, more than half reported being subjected to emotional abuse at home and a quarter said a parent or another adult at home had lost their jobs, according to results from the first nationally representative survey of high school students’ mental health and well-being during the pandemic.

Faced with sudden school closures, social isolation, and the fear of family loss or illness, 66% of students reported that schoolwork became more difficult to complete after the pandemic shuttered campuses nationwide in March 2020.

Even before the pandemic, survey data suggests that youth mental health had grown bleeker and suicide was already a leading cause of death among teens. The new CDC data point to a situation that’s grown even more dire, especially for LGBTQ youth and girls, two groups that reported particularly high levels of poor mental health during the pandemic.

“Young people and their families have been under incredible levels of stress during the pandemic,” Kathleen Ethier, director of the CDC’s division of adolescent and school health, said during a press call Thursday. “Our data exposes cracks and uncovers an important layer of insight into the extreme disruptions that some youth have encountered.”

The results come from the Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey, which was completed by a nationally representative sample of 7,705 public and private high school students. The CARES Act-funded questionnaire was conducted online between January and June 2021. Since then, the country has entered a new phase of the pandemic as mask mandates and other public health measures are lifted, but while the death toll approaches 1 million. Public health officials acknowledged it’s unclear how youth well-being has fared since the survey was completed.

The figures are key to understanding the pandemic’s effects on the health and well-being of American youth. Previous evidence has suggested the pandemic has had a deleterious effect on youth and contributed to trends like a surge in teen depression and anxiety, but the national survey is the first to asses the national prevalence of disruptions and adversities like parental job loss, personal job loss, homelessness, hunger and the extent of emotional or physical abuse at home.

Read the full article about the mental health of students during the COVID-19 pandemic by Mark Keierleber at The 74.