Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Formative Research
Date Submitted: Jun 26, 2025
Date Accepted: Jul 2, 2026
Mobility Patterns and Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Smartphone Mobility Data Analysis
ABSTRACT
Background:
The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted mobility globally. Methodological challenges in tracking mobility hindered understanding mental health implications of these changes.
Objective:
This study aimed to measure pandemic mobility changes using smartphone data, and analyze its concurrent and longitudinal relationships with mental health outcomes.
Methods:
This study analyzed data from 145 participants in the CU-COVID19 cohort in Hong Kong using Google Location History for individual mobility and Google Community Mobility Reports for population-level residential stay. Mental health (depression, anxiety, PTSD) was assessed via surveys at baseline, 6 months, and 12 months. Each assessment measured symptoms experienced during the previous 14 days, and mobility data were extracted for these same 14-days. Individual mobility data were transformed into factors representing journey diversity, immobility, and remoteness.
Results:
Population-level mobility was not directly associated with mental health. Instead, when population mobility decreased, individuals made less diverse journeys (β = .36, P < .001), which was associated with increased symptoms of depression (β = -.29, P = .02) and PTSD (β = -.35, P = .002). Journey diversity also showed significant bidirectional associations with mental health outcomes across 6-month intervals. That is, baseline depression was associated with subsequent reduced journey diversity (β = -.15, P = .02), which, in turn, was associated with subsequently higher depression (β = -.43, P = .008).
Conclusions:
Individual-level mobility patterns, particularly lower journey diversity, are associated with significantly reduced mental health. Behavioural profiling aided by smartphone data helped reveal these nuanced associations that population metrics alone cannot capture. Bidirectional relationships between mobility and mental health challenge prevailing assumptions that mobility restrictions unilaterally worsen mental health. Smartphone geolocation tracking represents a powerful tool for digital phenotyping, capable of detecting subtle behavioral changes that may predict or influence health outcomes.
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