Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This study aimed to assess Italian parents' views on how the COVID‐19 pandemic will affect key issues over the autumn and winter, including school attendance, vaccination and drug strategies and the use of telemedicine.

Research and data are important to draw attention to the experiences of children during the COVID-19 pandemic, to advocate for a range of protection services to be available during the crisis and beyond, and to inform the design of violence against children (VAC) prevention and response programmes. That said, the need for evidence must be balanced against the substantial risks to children, families and even researchers participating in violence-related research and data collection efforts. These risks are always present, but are likely to be amplified in the context of COVID-19, which may require rapid research, often via remote methods such as mobile phones or the Internet. This new UNICEF publication, Research on Violence against Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Guidance to inform ethical data collection and evidence generation, addresses key questions on generating VAC evidence that may arise during the pandemic and includes a decision tree (below) to guide those considering conducting research and data collection on VAC during COVID-19.

 

Social work is about building relationships, and communicating effectively is essential for this. Communication is a key element in building trust and relationships with families. Social workers wanted to keep good communication with workers as the relationship and maintaining the flow of communication are also considered important to a mentoring relationship. But the pandemic presented a dilemma of not knowing when or how often to contact workers to offer support.

Nepal was in nationwide lockdown for nearly three months in 2020 with partial restrictions still in place. Much worryingly, COVID-19 induced restrictions have confined women and young girls in their home, increasing the risk of domestic violence. The available support system to respond to violence against women and girls (VAWG) has also been disrupted during this period. The figures of violence against women, and child sexual abuse are increasingly being reported during the lockdown and thereafter. To mitigate this, a response against VAWG should not be a missing agenda. This commentary focuses on the situation of VAWG during COVID-19 induced restrictions in Nepal and offers a way forward for addressing the issue.

According to estimates by UNFPA, the COVID-19 pandemic may result in two million cases of female genital mutilation that would otherwise have been averted or a one third reduction in progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) target 5.3, the elimination of female genital mutilation by 2030. With limited research and documentation on the impact of humanitarian crises on female genital mutilation, the Joint Programme developed this brief to document lessons learned during the COVID-19 crisis. Drawing on rapid assessments and surveys, and consultations with country and regional offices, the brief presents Joint Programme strategies for adapting interventions to ensure business continuity in the face of the pandemic, and captures learning that will inform the programme’s future strategic planning. The brief is intended for staff, partners, and stakeholders working towards the elimination of female genital mutilation.

This paper invetigates the effect that lockdown measures have had on the stress levels and mental health of parents and children during the COVID‐19 pandemic.

The purpose of this study was to understand how both sleeping habits and smartphone use changed among adolescents between January 2020 to July 2020.

Adolescents and young adults have experienced significant impact as a result of COVID-19 with many schools and work places transitioning to online formats, altering procedures or closing completely. Notably, many youths are in a unique position as both employees and students. Our team was interested in understanding what has been difficult for youth in making these changes, what has worked well, and what would help them learn or work better.

Following the release of the WFP COVID-19 Medium-term programme framework (MTPF), the Nutrition Division has developed a number of guidance tools and documents related to the MTPF pillars of work. The Overweight and obesity in the context of COVID-19 technical note and guidance aims to support WFP's work in the area of promoting healthy and nutritious diets, and preventing all forms of malnutrition. Note that this is part of the forthcoming guidelines on overweight and obesity prevention, highlighting the key role that WFP can play across the various systems – food, health, social protection and education systems.

Some countries are starting to reopen schools as others develop plans to do so following widespread and extended closures due to COVID-19. Using data from two surveys and 164 countries, this research brief describes the educational strategies countries are putting into place, or plan to, in order to mitigate learning impacts of extended school closures, particularly for the most vulnerable children. In addition, it highlights emerging good practices.

To monitor the household-level impacts of COVID-19, the National Statistics Office of Mongolia (NSO) and the World Bank have implemented a joint COVID-19 Household Response Phone Survey (HRPS) on a national sample of 1,334 households.

This brief examines the dynamics of coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) transmission within families in the city of Bnei Brak, Israel, one of the most crowded cities in the world and the city with the highest rates of children per family in Israel. Analysis of family clusters in Bnei Brak shows lower rates of COVID-19 positivity in children compared with adults residing in the same household. Children 5–17 years of age were about 61% and children 0–4 years were 47% less likely to have positive PCR results compared with adults older than 18 years of age residing in the same household.

Smartphone addiction, Internet addiction, family members or friends infected with coronavirus, graduation affected by the epidemic, levels of separation anxiety, physical injury fear, and tendency to adopt an emotion-focused coping style were associated with increased levels of respondents’ depressive symptoms.
Targeted intervention measures could be formulated based on the significant influencing factors on anxiety and clinical depressive symptoms.

As the coronavirus pandemic extends to low and middle income countries (LMICs), there are growing concerns about the risk of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in populations with high prevalence of comorbidities, the impact on health and economies more broadly and the capacity of existing health systems to manage the additional burden of COVID-19. The direct effects of COVID are less of a concern in children, who seem to be largely asymptomatic or to develop mild illness as occurs in high income countries; however children in LMICs constitute a high proportion of the population and may have a high prevalence of risk factors for severe lower respiratory infection such as HIV or malnutrition. Further diversion of resources from child health to address the pandemic among adults may further impact on care for children. Poor living conditions in LMICs including lack of sanitation, running water and overcrowding may facilitate transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The indirect effects of the pandemic on child health are of considerable concern, including increasing poverty levels, disrupted schooling, lack of access to school feeding schemes, reduced access to health facilities and interruptions in vaccination and other child health programs. Further challenges in LMICs include the inability to implement effective public health measures such as social distancing, hand hygiene, timely identification of infected people with self-isolation and universal use of masks. Lack of adequate personal protective equipment, especially N95 masks is a key concern for health care worker protection. While continued schooling is crucial for children in LMICs, provision of safe environments is especially challenging in overcrowded resource constrained schools. The current crisis is a harsh reminder of the global inequity in health in LMICs. The pandemic highlights key challenges to the provision of health in LMICs, but also provides opportunities to strengthen child health broadly in such settings.

Gender-based violence against women and girls (GBVAWG), with intimate partner violence as its most common form, is highly prevalent in many societies, where it erodes social cohesion and development. Emergency situations, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, aggravate the threat of GBVAWG to individuals, families and societies. Indeed the risk and consequences of GBVAWG may be exacerbated by lockdown policies implemented by many countries throughout the world, the disruption of economic, social and protective networks, sudden changes in family functioning, stress, increased substance use and decreased access to services.