Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The paper explores the COVID-19 ontologies and experiences of children, youths and women in Ward 17 of rural Gwanda South. It argues that the locals have indistinct insights and perspectives on the pandemic. Most of them managed to conceptualize COVID-19 from a “realistic” and “fatalistic” standpoint. Adopting a mixed-method research design that inclines more towards a qualitative approach, data has been collected through document review that was validated with key informant interviews and questionnaire survey.

The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted almost every aspect of life, especially daily physical activity and healthy eating habits but also mental health. Our study aimed to examine the relationship between the physical activity level, eating habits and mental health of Serbian adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 3506 students from the territory of the Republic of Serbia participated in this study. IPAQ-short version and HBSC-FFQ were used to assess physical activity level and eating habits, along with self-rated health.

More than 25% of East Java regencies and cities had stunting prevalence rates higher than the national figure. The involvement of the youths to reduce stunting is important in helping to overcome this national health problem. This study aimed to identify areas in East Java that have stunting prevalence rates above the national rate and assisted in the preparation of a program called the Youth Empowerment for Stunting Reduction Program (YESREP). This descriptive study used document review by PRISMA stages. At the initial stage, 453 documents were filtered from Google Scholar (n=29), Pubmed (n=12), SagePub (n=20), Semantic Scholar (n=6), others (n =136), while the remaining (n=260) were discarded. The search keywords were ’youth empowerment’, ‘stunting’, and ‘Covid-19’. The inclusion criteria were stunting cases, youth empowerment, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The documents screened were journals with quantitative, qualitative, document review methods, year of publication:2017-2022, focusing on youth empowerment and stunting, and in English or Indonesian languages. The tool used for the final document selection used PICOT model.

South Africa’s progress towards the 95-95-95 goals has been significantly slower among adolescents living with HIV (ALHIV), among whom antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence, retention in care and viral suppression remain a concern. After 2 years of living with COVID-19, it is important to examine the direct and indirect effect s of the pandemic on healthcare resources, access to HIV services and availability of support structures, to assess their impact on HIV care for ALHIV.

The aim of this analysis was to assess the effectiveness of a juvenile outpatient weight management program during the coronavirus pandemic in Germany, which was implemented digitally during the initial lockdown and thereafter under strict hygiene rules (e.g., adapted exercise sessions). Changes in body mass index standard deviation scores (BMI SDS), physical fitness, media consumption, health-related quality of life (HRQOL), and social self-concept of 28 children and adolescents were compared to data of 30 participants before the pandemic.

With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, increasing numbers of cases of the multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) have been reported worldwide; however, it is unclear whether this syndrome has a differential pattern in children from Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC). A systematic review and meta-analysis was conducted to analyze the epidemiological, clinical, and outcome characteristics of patients with MIS-C in LAC countries. A systematic literature search was conducted in the main electronic databases and scientific meetings from March 1, 2020, to June 30, 2021. Available reports on epidemiological surveillance of countries in the region during the same period were analyzed.

This manuscript reports on a youth-driven health assessment engaging youth of color in identifying community health priorities during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Photovoice, a participatory visual ethnographic health assessment strategy, was used to explore the question: What does health or healthiness mean to you and/or your community? Youth captured images that represented their priorities. The photos were discussed using the SHOWed framework and analyzed thematically. Four themes related to community health were identified. Additionally, youth captured their narrative of COVID-19 as “a revealing force that highlights systemic inequities, driving individuals and communities to both cultivate their resilience and take healthcare into their own hands in response to government and policy level failures.

Adolescents constitute 16% of the global population and are susceptible to adverse health and illness from substance abuse, unhealthy diet, physical inactivity, and high-risk sexual behaviors. This study aimed to assess the perceptions of good health, health-seeking behavior, and health service utilization among adolescents living in a low-income urban neighborhood after the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. A total of 23 adolescents, including 12 males and 11 females, were interviewed. Adolescents' perceived body image and size considerations apart from functioning at an optimum physical capacity as the principal attributes of good health, which was possible through the intake of a healthy diet and exercise. Adolescents were likely to be aware of the addiction potential and risk of cancer from using tobacco and alcohol, but attitudes towards eschewing their use were ambivalent. Adolescents perceived themselves as lacking access to reliable, adequate, and validated sources of sexual and reproductive health information. Knowledge and utilization of adolescent health services in this area were negligible, suggestive of the need to strengthen these services and improve the program outreach.

Obesity is a well-recognized risk factor for critical illness and death among adult patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. This study aimed to characterize the clinical outcomes and risk factors of death related to obesity in a cohort of hospitalized paediatric patients with COVID-19. It performed an analysis of all paediatric patients with obesity and COVID-19 registered in SIVEP-Gripe, a Brazilian nationwide surveillance database, between February 2020 and May 2021. The primary outcome was time to death, which was evaluated by using cumulative incidence function.

The NHS response to covid-19 altered provision and access to primary care. This study aims to examine the impact of covid-19 on general practitioner (GP) contacts with children and young people in England. Longitudinal trends analysis using electronic health records from the Clinical Practice Research Datalink Aurum database.

Adolescence is a crucial stage for health behavior development, which is associated with health in adulthood. School closures caused by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have exposed adolescents to an increased risk of obesity due to a lack of physical activity. Although social network interventions provide an effective approach for promoting health-related behavior, current practices neglect gender differences in adolescent behavioral patterns and emotional preferences. The aim of this study was to examine the effectiveness of centrality-based methods integrated with of gender contexts in a social network intervention to improve adolescent's health behavior.

As the epidemic progresses, universal vaccination against COVID-19 has been the trend, but there are still some doubts about the efficacy and safety of COVID-19 vaccines in adolescents, children, and even infants. This study aims to evaluate the safety, immunogenicity, and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines in the population aged 0–17 years. A comprehensive search for relevant randomized controlled trials (RCTs) was conducted in PubMed, Embase, and the Cochrane Library from inception to November 9, 2021. All data were pooled by RevMan 5.3 statistical software, with risk ratio (RR) and its 95% confidence interval as the effect measure. This study protocol was registered on PROSPERO (CRD42021290205).

Strict lockdown measures were introduced in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused mass disruption to adolescent swimmers’ daily routines. To measure how lockdown impacted nutritional practices in this cohort, three-day photograph food diaries were analysed at three time points: before (January), during (April), and after (September) the first UK lockdown. Thirteen swimmers (aged 15 ± 1 years) from a high-performance swimming club submitted satisfactory food diaries at all time points.