Characteristics of team members.

After the 2021 US withdrawal, a drastic transition of power coupled with international sanctions and the Islamic State-Taliban conflict led to growing issues of widespread economic hardships, food insecurity, stricter social policies, and changes to daily life. This 2023 study examines the association of diminished quality of life (DQOL) on the psychosocial wellbeing of Afghan adults living in-country under the Taliban- Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Applying Solar & Irwin’s social determinants of health framework, we present the quantitative analysis of data collected from 873 Afghan respondents (ages 18–65) of a digital survey, using snowball sampling over social media. Data analysis examines the association between individual self-reported quality of life hardships and psychosocial stress symptoms (disaggregated and aggregated), disaggregated by demographics. Approximately nine-in-ten Afghans face DQOL correlates related to higher psychosocial stress (PSS). 72.9% (CI95% 69.8–76.0) of respondents self-report suffering food insecurity; 71.6% (CI 95% 68.3–74.8) poor access to needed healthcare. The extent to which Afghan men face limited household healthcare access is linked to higher PSS levels (χ2 = 117.10, p