When the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020, it brought many aspects of life to a standstill. For adolescents, this included attending school and the social interactions that happen there. But the process of growing up continued — including puberty.
This had Kathleen McCormick ’16, a doctoral candidate in psychology studying reproductive transitions, wondering about how adolescents were handling this coming-of-age process during the pandemic, specifically the link between puberty and depression for girls.
“The question of how people are experiencing puberty during that time became very front of mind because much of the experience, and the changes that happen, do not happen in private,” said McCormick, who studies in the Adolescent Transitions Lab led by Jane Mendle, associate professor of psychology. “Puberty is not purely a biological experience. It is fundamentally a social experience too.”
Decades of research have linked higher pubertal status (the measure of how far someone has progressed through the physical changes of puberty) and earlier pubertal timing (how pubertally developed someone is compared to others their age and sex) with increased depressive symptoms. But McCormick’s research, published in the journal Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, showed that link didn’t hold during the pandemic as schools were shut down and turned to virtual learning.
“One hypothesis for this is that because of remote schooling, adolescents could conceal certain aspects of puberty in a different way,” McCormick said. “These biological changes usually happen in social contexts.
“On the other hand, another possibility is that everything was so stressful that the changes weren’t significant in the way that we historically have found puberty to be significant for mental health.”
The data shows that may be the case. The levels of depressive symptoms experienced by girls during the pandemic were significantly higher than pre-pandemic levels, measured via the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale for Children, a self-reported 20-question survey that measures depressive symptoms in children. Scores range from 0 to 60, 15 is threshold for probable depression. Before the pandemic, the mean score was 14.20; during the pandemic, the mean score was 23.65. McCormick said the increase is notable.
“It points out just how difficult the pandemic was, and how many things the girls had to navigate during the pandemic that weren’t just puberty,” said McCormick, who also said the data is aligned with the growing teen mental health crisis that started before the pandemic.
The study also looked at how the pandemic affected the relationship between menarche (the first menstrual period) and depression. When looking at whether age at menarche is a factor, the pandemic groups who reached menarche at an earlier age reported greater depressive symptoms, but age at menarche was not a factor for the pre-pandemic group.
For both groups, there was a positive correlation between the time since menarche and the onset of depressive symptoms, and McCormick says that this result should be looked at more closely.
“I think we need to understand this a little more,” said McCormick. “Our study is the second study that I’m aware of that has looked at time since menarche, and I think this time period has really important implications for mental health and development.”
Also important, McCormick said, is that the results come from a disparate sample of nearly 600 girls from various parts of the country.
“One of the best things, I think, to come out of the pandemic is an ability to collect data outside of your own region,” McCormick said. “It’s opened up our ability to look at questions and see if what we find in our own area is happening elsewhere. We’re now able to leverage resources and include people we may not usually get; and for us and Cornell, that just strengthens our research.”
Jane Mendle was the senior author on this study; Christopher Davis, a doctoral candidate, was also an author.
Posted on
08/05/2025
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