Evaluating the Impact of Mask Mandates and Political Party Affiliation on Mental Health Internet Search Behavior in the United States During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Generalized Additive Mixed Model Framework.

These findings suggest that mask mandates were associated nonlinearly with significant changes in mental health search behavior, with the most notable associations occurring in anxiety-related search terms. Therefore, policy makers should consider monitoring and providing additional support for these mental health symptoms following the implementation of public health-related mandates such as mask mandates. Nevertheless, these results do not provide evidence for an overwhelming impact of mask mandates on population-level mental health in the United States.