When the COVID-19 pandemic struck in early 2020, researchers around the world found themselves grappling with the same questions: How were people making sense of their transformed lives? What stories were they telling to navigate unprecedented disruption?
Rather than work in isolation, Dr. Irina Todorova from Northeastern University’s Department of Applied Psychology assembled something remarkable: a research collaboration spanning 15 countries and involving over 40 colleagues, including graduate and undergraduate students. The ambitious project, “Stories of Life During a Pandemic,” became one of the largest international qualitative studies of its kind, collecting 1,685 personal narratives about life under COVID-19.
A Global Network in Action
What made this study unique wasn’t just its scale, but its deeply collaborative approach. Researchers coordinated through countless Zoom meetings, synchronizing the methodology, sharing how data collection was progressing in their respective countries and comparing local regulations and responses. “I remember hearing, ‘In [country], we collect these data and have these laws currently in place. How about in your countries?'” recalls Chloé Michoud, then a doctoral student at the University of Lausanne who joined the project. “I thought that we were all, in our own way, contributing to documenting the pandemic for future generations.”
The study employed narrative health psychology theory, which recognizes that people make sense of life disruptions through storytelling—stories that are deeply influenced by cultural and historical contexts. This approach allowed the international team to capture not just what people experienced, but how they understood and gave meaning to their experiences across vastly different cultural settings.
Universal Themes, Local Nuances
Despite geographic and cultural differences, striking patterns emerged from the data. The most prevalent theme—present in nearly half of all stories—centered on disruptions in interpersonal relationships, but these disruptions were often made meaningful through an increased appreciation for the value of human connection.
Yet the research also revealed important local variations. In Puerto Rico, for instance, participants expressed deep mistrust of government institutions, shaped by recent experiences with corruption and mismanaged hurricane recovery. In the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland, more than a third of participants described the pandemic as an opportunity for reflection and relationship-deepening—but notably, this occurred within a context of relative economic security and strong social support systems.
Building Academic Community in Crisis
For the researchers involved, the project became more than just a study—it was a source of connection during a time of global isolation. Claire Dudley, then an undergraduate at Northeastern who managed the complex international dataset, found that “working with colleagues coming from so many different places provided a source of connection in a time where this feeling was so lacking.”
The collaboration has proven remarkably durable, spawning multiple publications and ongoing relationships. Dr. Mariana Guzzardo from California State University, East Bay, and previously a post-doctoral scholar in Bouvé – Center on Population Health and Health Disparities, focused on experiences in Puerto Rico and among older adults. She noted that the project offered “a way of connecting with people around the world at a moment when our ability to see one another was so restricted…. “One of my main goals at the beginning of the project was to ensure that Puerto Rico’s experiences were represented in the study…. They reevaluated their values, spoke directly to systemic inequities, and emphasized the importance of community and identity in the face of hardship.”
A Living Archive
Five years later, the project continues to yield insights through targeted analyses of specific populations and regions. Publications have examined women’s experiences across cultures, older adults’ adaptations in the U.S. and Puerto Rico, and detailed explorations of responses from Italy, the United Kingdom, and Switzerland, which was just published in the Journal of Health Psychology.
Perhaps most significantly, the study stands as both a research achievement and a testament to what’s possible when scholars transcend institutional and national boundaries to address shared challenges. In documenting how ordinary people made sense of extraordinary times, this international team also demonstrated how academic collaboration itself can provide meaning and connection during global crisis.
As the world continues to grapple with the pandemic’s lasting effects, these 1,685 stories—and the global network that collected them—offer both empirical insights and a model for how research communities can respond to crisis with both scientific rigor and human solidarity.
Related publications:
- Guzzardo, M. T., Oshana, J., Balkin, A., & Todorova, I. (2024). “Adapting to a new reality”: Older adults’ experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 8(2), 188-208. https://doi.org/10.29333/ajqr/14601
- Guzzardo, M., & Todorova, I. (2025, November). Embodied experiences and restricted spaces: Puerto Ricans’ perceptions during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic [Conference presentation]. 45th Annual National Women’s Studies Association Conference, San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- Most recent publication: Kostova, Z., Michoud, C., Del Rio Carral, M., Cipolletta, S., & Todorova, I. (2025). Stories of life during the COVID-19 pandemic: Personal growth among individuals living in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. Journal of Health Psychology,Online. https://doi.org/10.1177/13591053251341797
- First publication with all authors: Todorova, I., Albers, L., Aronson, N., Baban, A., Benyamini, Y., Cipolletta, S., Del Rio Carral, M., Dimitrova, E., Dudley, C., Guzzardo, M., Hammoud, R., Fadil Azim, D. H., Hilverda, F., Huang, Q., John, L., Kaneva, M., Khan, S., Kostova, Z., Kotzeva, T., Fathima, M. A., Anto, M. M., Michoud, C., Awal Miah, M. A., Mohr, J., Morgan, K., Nastase, E. S., Neter, E., Panayotova, Y., Patel, H., Pillai, D., Polidoro Lima, M., Qin, D. B., Salewski, C., Sankar, K. A., Shao, S., Suresh, J., Todorova, R., Tomaino, S. C. M., Vollmann, M., Winter, D., Xie, M., Xuan Ning, S., & Zlatarska, A. (2021). “What I thought was so important isn’t really that important”: International perspectives on making meaning during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Health Psychology and Behavioral Medicine, 9(1), 830-857. https://doi.org/10.1080/21642850.2021.1981909
- Tomaino, S. C. M., Cipolletta, S., Kostova, Z., & Todorova, I. (2021). Stories of life during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy: A qualitative study. International Journal of Environmental Research in Public Health, 18(14). https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18147630
- Vollmann, M., Todorova, I., Salewski, C., & Neter, E. (2023). Stresses of COVID-19 and expectations for the future among women: A cross cultural analysis according to the femininity/masculinity dimension. Cross-Cultural Research, 57(4), 327-351. https://doi.org/10.1177/10693971221149783
- Winter, D. A., Hammoud, R., Todorova, I., & Cipolletta, S. (2024). Construing the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK: A brief report of a qualitative study. Journal of Constructivist Psychology, 38(1), 53–65 https://doi.org/DOI:10.1080/10720537.2023.2300058
