Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Youth engagement in disaster risk reduction is a growing area of research, practice and policy. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for improved opportunities for youth to participate and have their voices heard. Our Photovoice study explores experiences, perceptions, and insights of youth regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, while providing an opportunity for youth to participate in disaster risk reduction and contribute to resilient communities. Nine focus groups were conducted from February 2019 to August 2020 with four teenaged youth; the data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and hosted two virtual Photovoice exhibitions.

Digital messaging programs have the potential to be a powerful, low-cost, technological tool to support multiple facets of caregivers' knowledge, and implementation of developmentally appropriate caregiver-child activities among diverse immigrant populations. However, involving caregivers and community stakeholders in the cultural and linguistic tailoring of interventions to optimize utilization and engagement may be critical to ensuring messaging programs' usability and acceptability. The purpose of this mixed-method study was to use the dynamic adaptation process (DAP) within an Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, Sustainment (EPIS) framework to examine the implementation of a digital messaging program, developed at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, aimed at providing Spanish-, English-, and Mandarin-speaking immigrant caregivers with caregiver-child activities that supported children's development and caregivers' knowledge.

Sensation seeking is an important underlying factor of both positive and negative forms of risk-taking during adolescence and early adulthood. However, macro-factors such as the global COVID-19 pandemic may influence sensation seeking opportunities and risk-taking behaviors that are considered negative and positive. Therefore, the primary aim of this study was to examine the associations between sensation seeking and behaviors that are considered positive or negative forms of risk-taking during the Covid-19 pandemic in a sample of adolescents and early adults (N = 660, Mage = 22.91, SD = 3.14). Using citizen science methods, negative risk-taking was defined as taking unaccepted risks, such as falsifying vaccination reports or deliberately contracting COVID-19. Positive risk-taking was defined as taking socially accepted risks, such as balancing between the risk to infect elderly people and the need to socialize with peers. Results showed that participants with higher levels of sensation seeking took more positive and negative COVID-19 related risks. An additional finding was that sensation seeking was positively associated with the need to contribute to society. This indicates that during adolescence and early adulthood, sensation seeking may be a driving factor for both positive (i.e., socially accepted) and negative (i.e., socially unaccepted) risk-taking in the context of a high-stake global pandemic, arguing against a one-direction negative relation between sensation seeking and risk-taking.

Youth can transmit COVID-19 to adults, but few communication materials exist for engaging youth in COVID-19 prevention behaviors. This study describes the process of leveraging a community–academic partnership in a rapid response initiative to engage youth in a contest (i.e., Youth-Led Creative Expression Contest to Prevent COVID-19 across Texas) to develop creative public health messaging centered on the prevention of COVID-19 transmission and infection for their peers. Core activities included developing a request for applications that solicited submission of creative expression materials promoting the use of COVID-19 prevention behaviors (mask-wearing, social distancing, handwashing, not touching the face) from Texas youth in elementary, middle, and/or high school; sending the request for applications to 48 organizations in Austin, Brownsville, Dallas, El Paso, Houston, and San Antonio in summer 2020; and recruiting a youth advisory board to score submissions and award prizes.

During the Covid-19 crisis, stereotypical images of young people as selfish troublemakers or passive victims appeared in the media and scholarly publications. These persistent views disregard many young people's authentic experiences and civic contributions. This article challenges these perceptions by highlighting young people's acts of citizenship during the pandemic lockdowns that took place during 2020 in Aotearoa New Zealand. Despite being internationally praised for its compliant Covid-19 response, citizens were prepared to challenge the pandemic restrictions in order to have their voices heard. Young people were often at the forefront of these protests, wanting to actively participate in matters that concerned them by joining Black Lives Matter marches or campaigning to lower the voting age. At the same time, young people engaged in more personal and invisible acts of citizenship within their families and school communities. This article shares evidence from our empirical study into young people's social and political engagement during the Covid-19 lockdowns in Aotearoa New Zealand. Implications of this study for citizenship education are discussed.

Emerging research indicates an immense burden on children and families related to the COVID-19 pandemic. This study uses data from semi-structured interviews and focus groups with early childhood service providers (n=19) to demonstrate the pandemic's impact on families with very young children and early childhood services in two high-need communities in Massachusetts, USA. This study found that although the pandemic has worsened existing inequities and severely limited resources for young children and families, community mobilization in response to the crisis and innovative strategies stemming from resilience were developed quickly. Findings highlight the usefulness of early childhood systems of care in crisis responses and leveraging public-private cooperation to serve the needs of diverse families with young children. Lessons learned are applicable to global settings with high pre-pandemic inequities and can be used to develop stronger models of crisis response within the early childhood sector in preparation for future crises.

Social learning experiences developed through engagement in community cultural activities can affect a child’s development. Few studies have examined how children’s engagement in community activities is related to their mental health. This study aimed to examine associations between children’s participation in community cultural activities and their mental health. We targeted all sixth-grade children in all 69 primary schools in Adachi City, Tokyo, using the Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study (n = 4391). Parents answered the validated Japanese version of the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) to assess child mental health, the child’s engagement in community cultural activities. The community activity in which children most frequently participated was local festivals.

The UNICEF Evaluation Office, in collaboration with Communication for Development (C4D) section in the UNICEF Programme Group and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, developed the Community Rapid Assessment (CRA) exercise as a way to measure the protective practices, health-seeking behaviours, coping strategies and emerging needs of individuals and households in relation to COVID-19. The primary objective was to provide UNICEF country offices valuable data to strengthen the evidence base and inform country-level programming in response to the pandemic. The CRA is also intended to contribute to UNICEF’s overall analytical agenda on COVID in an effort to better position this type work in the overall corporate efforts. Its findings have thus far provided a rich and much-needed picture of the behavioural component of the outbreak at the individual and community levels. In making use of time-series data – that is, the longitudinal data repeatedly captured over several waves of data collection – the CRA has also provided further opportunities to examine country- and region-specific trends over time. And because the CRA is a real-time exercise, analysis, visualization and interpretation of findings are already being used in several country-level fora to guide program changes. The long-term vision is to embed capacity for similar surveys within government data systems at the country level. This report presents early findings and insights from eight countries in Eastern and Southern Africa – namely Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan and Uganda.

This article explores the understanding of community to families living in insecure housing in one Australian state during the COVID-19 pandemic. Five female-headed families were interviewed during the pandemic and asked to identify what community meant to them. All participants were referred by an agency caring for families experiencing homelessness or housing insecurity. Community was defined using Bourdieu's concept of social capital, allowing for both bonding and bridging relationships to be explored. Bonding relationships refer to close emotional ties with family and friends, while bridging ties establish networks that provide individuals with access to resources.

Community attachments are thought to promote adolescents’ engagement in public health behaviors. To date, past research has exclusively examined the social benefits of community attachments among adolescents in the United States and less is known about these benefits among youth in low-income adolescent-dense countries such as Pakistan. The present study examined associations between Pakistani adolescents’ community attachments and COVID-19 public health behaviors, including social distancing, disinfecting, hoarding, news monitoring. Adolescents living in Pakistan (N = 1,110; 13–18 years; M = 16.70) reported on their COVID-19 public health behavior (social distancing, disinfecting behaviors, hoarding behaviors, news monitoring) and community attachments (social responsibility values, social trust, self-interest values).

Parent and practitioners observations were examined to provide insights into the impact of covid-19 restrictions on children’s spiritual well-being, specifically related to reduced physical meeting of church communities in two case study contexts: Poland and the UK. Exploration of the four domains of spiritual wellbeing was carried out, with specific focus on how the abrupt changes in the communal domain may have impacted on other aspects of the child’s spiritual well-being. Significant variations in the response by churches during the pandemic were overlaid by disparate perceptions of the spiritual needs of children in these contexts. The extent to which these responses dovetailed with parental responsibilities and expectations of the church was considered alongside awareness of the changed nature of church’s activity with children during the pandemic.

This exploratory study examined how social ties helped lower-income Jewish parents in the Greater Philadelphia area weather the COVID-19 pandemic. 36 parents who self-identified as Jewish, had at least one school-age child, and earned less than the median Jewish household income in the Philadelphia area were interviewed. The data were analyzed through the lens of social capital, focusing on three forms: bonding, bridging, and linking social capital. Unlike in weather-related disasters, where social capital yields crucial physical help, the social distancing requirements of the COVID-19 pandemic changed how social capital functions. Parents with strong social ties in the Jewish community were able to connect to people and institutions of power, such as rabbis and Jewish organizations, who provided valuable material resources while families sheltered in place.

The Covid-19–related lockdowns resulted in disruptions of care for children with inborn errors of immunity, who, without access to travel, would be unable to continue immunoglobulin replacement. A community-based care program through pediatricians in state-run peripheral hospitals has been initiated. The police network, which was already actively involved in Covid-19 prevention, helped transport essential medicines from the tertiary care center. Two months later, a virtual focus group discussions with the mothers was conducted to understand their experiences, identify possible gaps in care, and explore suggestions for improvement. Although the community-based care and subsequent virtual focus group discussions were instituted as a temporary measure to ensure continuity of care, it has been found that it is effective, feasible, and acceptable. Hence, it has been decided to continue the program even beyond the pandemic. This model of care can be extended to other chronic illnesses as well as to rare diseases in resource-constrained settings.

This article aims to ascertain, the perceptions of caregivers of children on covid-19 containment measures, the need for adherence to the measures to understand the reasons for poor compliance. The interviewees expressed their difficulties and frustrations in maintaining the rigors of application of these measures but would that government should expedite action towards the discovery of Protective vaccines because of the effect these measures had on their economic means of livelihoods.

Public trust in institutions in all parts of society is critical for health emergency preparedness. Leaders in government, science,public health,the private sector, international organizations, civil society,and the media are charged with identifying potential health risks and developing measures that will minimize their impact. But often, the threats are theoretical, something that may occur in the future, and difficult for many people to grasp as they address their very real day to day needs. It is only through empathy, accurate communications, community partnership, and effective actions that leaders generate the societal investments in resources and energy required to mitigate the effects of potential health hazards.Understanding the importance of public trust in institutions is especially critical during the COVID-19 outbreak,whose containment relies on the cooperative actions of business, NGOs,governments, communities and individuals.