Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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Journal article

Childcare and depression during the coronavirus pandemic in South Africa: a gendered analysis

AUTHOR(S)
Chijioke O. Nwosu

Published: August 2021 Journal: Plos One

The 2019 coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic resulted in the closure of businesses and schools, the remote provision of services and the disruption of the services of professional childminders. These disruptions resulted in a significant increase in parental responsibility for childcare. Such a substantial increase in time requirements for childcare domestically has potential mental health consequences. We therefore ascertained the relationship between childcare and depression in South Africa during the pandemic. Data came from the National Income Dynamics Study-Coronavirus Rapid Mobile Survey, a longitudinal telephonic survey conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa. The outcome was a depression index obtained from the two-item Patient Health Questionnaire while the main covariate was the average number of hours spent in taking care of children per weekday.

Journal article

COVID-19 learning losses: early grade reading in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Cally Ardington; Gabrielle Wills; Janeli Kotze

Published: August 2021 Journal: International Journal of Educational Development

Using three different studies on early grade reading from no-fee schools across in South Africa, this paper establishes short-term learning losses in reading for grade 2 and 4 students from under-resourced school contexts. This study found that in 2020 grade 2 students lost between 57 % and 70 % of a year of learning relative to their pre-pandemic peers. Among a grade 4 sample, learning losses are estimated at between 62 % and 81 % of a year of learning. Considering that in 2020 students in the samples lost between 56 %–60 % of contact teaching days due to school closures and rotational timetabling schedules compared to a pre-pandemic year, this implies learning to schooling loss ratios in the region of 1–1.4. There is some evidence from the grade 4 sample that the reading trajectories of children benefiting more from attending school pre-pandemic – namely girls and children with stronger initial reading proficiency - are more negatively impacted.

Journal article

The relationship between common mental disorders (CMDs), food insecurity and domestic violence in pregnant women during the COVID-19 lockdown in Cape Town, South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Zulfa Abrahams; Sonet Boisits; Marguerite Schneider (et al.)

Published: July 2021 Journal: Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology

This study aimed to explore the relationship between common mental disorders (CMDs), food insecurity and experiences of domestic violence among pregnant women attending public sector midwife obstetric units and basic antenatal care clinics in Cape Town during the COVID-19 lockdown. Perinatal women, attending 14 healthcare facilities in Cape Town, were enrolled in the study during baseline data collection before the COVID-19 lockdown. During the lockdown period, fieldworkers telephonically contacted the perinatal women who were enrolled in the study and had provided contact details. The following data were collected from those who consented to the study: socio-demographic information, mental health assessment, food insecurity status and experiences of domestic violence. Poisson regression was used to model the associations of a number of risk factors with the occurrence of CMDs.

Cite this research | Open access | No. of pages: 10 | Language: English | Topics: Social Protection, Well-being and Equity, Nutrition, Mental Health | Tags: COVID-19 response, domestic violence, household food security, lockdown, maternal and child health, pregnancy, pregnant women, social distance | Countries: South Africa

Journal article

Transitioning to adulthood from residential childcare during COVID-19: Experiences of young people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism spectrum disorder in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Wendy M. Mupaku; Adrian D. van Breda; Berni Kelly

Published: July 2021 Journal: British Journal of Learning Disabilities

This study focuses on young people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism who, due to child welfare concerns, have grown up in children's residential care and are now transitioning out of care at the age of 18 years towards young adulthood. This transition is termed “care leaving” and the young people in transition “care leavers”. The care leaving transition can be particularly difficult for young people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism. These challenges can be magnified in a time of a global crisis like COVID-19, which has resulted in countries being on lockdown and care leavers’ transitions being curtailed. Many mental health problems have emerged due to the COVID-19 outbreak and resultant lockdown that may negatively impact on the care leaving transition of young people with intellectual disabilities.

Journal article

Responding to COVID-19 threats to trial conduct: lessons learned from a feasibility trial of a psychological intervention for South African adolescents

AUTHOR(S)
Bronwyn Myers; Claire van der Westhuizen; Megan Pool

Published: July 2021 Journal: Trials

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to the conduct of clinical trials. Strategies for overcoming common challenges to non-COVID-19 trial continuation have been reported, but this literature is limited to pharmacological intervention trials from high-income settings. The purpose of this paper is to expand the literature to include a low- and middle-income country perspective. It describes the challenges posed by COVID-19 for a randomised feasibility trial of a psychological intervention for adolescents in Cape Town, South Africa, and lessons learned when implementing strategies to facilitate trial continuation in this context.

Working paper

Have social protection responses to Covid-19 undermined or supported gender equality? Emerging lessons from a gender perspective

AUTHOR(S)
Rebecca Holmes; Abigail Hunt

Institution: UK Aid, ODI
Published: June 2021

The impacts of the Covid-19 crisis have exacerbated gender inequalities. The rapid onset of the crisis in early 2020 severely disrupted livelihoods, and these impacts were strongly mediated by existing gender inequalities in the labour market, gendered roles and responsibilities around care work, and also household composition, with women shouldering disproportionate burden of the crisis. This paper examines the extent to which social protection responses to the crisis have recognised and addressed the gendered impacts of the crisis. Drawing on case studies from South Africa and Kerala, India, the paper looks at the design and implementation features of the social protection response from a gender perspective, and offers policy recommendations for strengthening gender in social protection and crisis response in the future.

Cite this research | No. of pages: 48 | Language: English | Topics: Social Protection, Well-being and Equity | Tags: COVID-19 response, gender equality, gender-responsive programmes, lockdown, social distance, social inequality, social protection programmes | Countries: India, South Africa | Publisher: UK Aid, ODI

Journal article

Policy foundations for transformation: a gender analysis of adolescent health policy documents in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Tanya Jacobs; Asha George; Michelle De Jong

Published: April 2021 Journal: Health Policy and Planning

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations Global Strategy (2016–30) emphasize that all women, children and adolescents ‘survive, thrive and transform’. A key element of this global policy framework is that gender equality is a stand-alone goal as well as a cross-cutting priority. Gender inequality and intersecting social and structural determinants shape health systems, including the content of policy documents, with implications for implementation. This article applies a gender lens to policy documents by national government bodies that have mandates on adolescent health in South Africa. Data were 15 policy documents, authored between 2003 and 2018, by multiple actors. The content analysis was guided by key lines of enquiry, and policy documents were classified along the continuum of gender blind to gender transformative.

Journal article

'Now my life is stuck!’: experiences of adolescents and young people during COVID-19 lockdown in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Lesley Gittings; Elona Toska; Sally Medley (et al.)

Published: March 2021 Journal: Global Public Health

Consequences of COVID-19 pandemic responses have included exacerbated poverty, food insecurity and state and domestic violence. Such effects may be particularly pronounced amongst adolescents and young people living in contexts of precarity and constraint, including in South Africa. However, there are evidence gaps on the lived experiences of this group. Telephonic semi-structured interviews with adolescents and young people in two South African provinces (n = 12, ages 18–25) were conducted in April 2020 to explore and document their experiences, challenges and coping strategies during strict COVID-19 lockdown.

Cite this research | Open access | No. of pages: 17 | Language: English | Topics: Health, Child Protection, Social Protection, Well-being and Equity | Tags: adolescent psychology, child abuse and neglect, child poverty, COVID-19 response, domestic violence, mental stress, parent-child relationship, psychological distress | Countries: South Africa

Journal article

COVID-19 and the pivotal role of grandparents: childcare and income support in the UK and South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Sara Cantillon; Elena Moore; Nina Teasdale

Published: March 2021 Journal: Feminist Economics

The COVID-19 global crisis and the “stay-home” response taken by most governments has starkly exposed the dependence of formal economies on the invisible and unpaid care labor of women – a dependence that has intensified during the pandemic as public childcare provision and schools are shut and parents work from home. This article focuses specifically on the childcare and income support provided by grandparents in the United Kingdom and South Africa. In undertaking this comparative analysis the study demonstrates the universality of intergenerational interdependence and the contextual specificity of grandparental childcare and income provision, as well as the differential impacts of suspending, or risking, such supports during the pandemic. Grandparents within and across households make substantial contributions to economic, social, and affective lives, and the study argues for greater recognition of these crucial contributions and the development of a more intersectional understanding of the provision of care work.

Journal article

Relationships with caregivers and mental health outcomes among adolescents living with HIV: a prospective cohort study in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Yulia Shenderovich; Mark Boyes; Michelle Degli Esposti (et al.)

Published: January 2021 Journal: BMC Public Health

Mental health problems may impact adherence to anti-retroviral treatment, retention in care, and consequently the survival of adolescents living with HIV. The adolescent-caregiver relationship is an important potential source of resilience. However, there is a lack of longitudinal research in sub-Saharan Africa on which aspects of adolescent-caregiver relationships can promote mental health among adolescents living with HIV. This article draws on a prospective longitudinal cohort study undertaken in South Africa to address this question.

Journal article

Counting the cost: COVID-19 school closures in South Africa and its impact on children

AUTHOR(S)
Nic Spaull; Servaas van der Berg

Published: December 2020 Journal: South African Journal of Childhood Education

When the new coronavirus rapidly spread across the globe, the impact of the virus on children was still unclear, and closing schools seemed the responsible thing to do. But much has been learnt since about coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the effects of lockdown and school closures, both in South Africa and internationally. This article aims to show that the mortality risk of the virus is extremely small for children, even when assuming an extremely pessimistic scenario for total COVID-19 deaths.

Journal article

COVID-19 and alternative care in South Africa: children’s responses to the pandemic: a case study from a child and youth care centre in Mogale City

AUTHOR(S)
Rika Swanzen; Gert Jonker

Published: December 2020 Journal: Institutionalised Children Explorations and Beyond

The experiences from a case study are evaluated against the aspects such as emergency response to vulnerable populations and other sources from the literature to serve as guidelines for the management of an epidemic in a child and youth care centre (CYCC). To help understand the effects of the epidemic on the centre, this article describes experiences in terms of the meeting of needs.

Journal article

Multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children in South Africa

AUTHOR(S)
Kate Webb; Deepthi Raju Abraham; Ayodele Faleye (et al.)

Published: October 2020 Journal: The Lancet Child & Adolescent Health

There are reports of a multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children associated with COVID-19 known as MIS-C or paediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome temporally associated with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (PIMS-TS). The definition of MIS-C issued by WHO includes clinical and laboratory features, with evidence of COVID-19, or likely contact with a person who has or has had COVID-19. South Africa has the most reported COVID-19 cases in Africa, with the Western Cape Province acting as the initial epicentre with a total of 93.414 people with confirmed COVID-19 by July 31, 2020, of whom 2910 were younger than 15 years old.

Commentaries and Think Pieces

What are we doing to the children of South Africa under the guise of COVID-19 lockdown?

AUTHOR(S)
Lore van Bruwaene; Fatima Mustafa; Jeane Cloete (et al.)

Published: September 2020 Journal: South African Medical Journal

Effects on children of the COVID-19 response.

Research Report

Is the COVID-19 regulation that prohibits parental visits to their children who are patients in hospital invalid in terms of the Constitution? What should hospitals do?

AUTHOR(S)
D. J. McQuoid-Mason

Published: September 2020 Journal: South African Medical Journal

This article deals with whether the COVID-19 regulation that prohibits parental visits to their children who are patients in hospital is
invalid in terms of the Constitution of South Africa. The article contends that the ban on visits by parents to their children in hospital is
a violation of the children’s rights provisions of the Constitution regarding the ‘best interests of the child’, and the ‘best interests standard’
in the Children’s Act 38 of 2005. The article also points out that the regulations are not saved by the limitations clause of the Constitution,
because the restriction is not ‘reasonable and justifiable’ and a ‘less restrictive means’ can be used to achieve the same purpose of preventing
the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The article concludes that the relevant regulation is legally invalid, and hospitals would be fully justified
in allowing parental visits to child patients provided proper precautions are taken to contain the virus.

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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

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