Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The public discourse around the COVID-19 pandemic has been strikingly quantitative. Worldwide, the mainstream media has regularly informed the public of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, including projections of worst-case scenarios drawn from esoteric epidemiological models. The prominence and visibility of data, regardless of its completeness or quality, underscored the threat of COVID-19 to policy makers and lay individuals alike. It also prompted governments to swiftly lock down their societies, despite the socioeconomic disruptions and human suffering associated with such lockdowns. The widespread media coverage of COVID-19 data and swift response from governments highlight the potency of real-time data, and contain important lessons for public health policy, which when applied, could raise the profile of other health issues and spur action among key stakeholders.

In the wake of a global pandemic, most school buildings closed for the 2019-2020 school year two or three months early, while universities and research firms forced all in-person data collection to stop. Education scientists testing the efficacy or effectiveness of particular interventions were forced to abruptly stop data collection prior to collecting the critical data on children’s end-of school year progress. Methodological researchers have spent years developing ways to accommodate missing data into research strategies, both retrospectively and prospectively. In this research note, I discuss the potential educational research scenarios, and how missing data theory and methods can be applied to data collected during COVID-19 school year, allowing researchers to maximize the time, effort, and resources invested in their previously collected data.

Timely, disaggregated, and quality data on the situation of children can help identify where the most vulnerable live so that interventions to counteract the potential adverse effects of COVID-19 can be implemented to reach those most in need. UNICEF’s call to protect children, especially the most marginalized, is essential now more than ever and our global databases can inform that response by painting a picture of children around the world. In the face of this unprecedented crisis, where are children especially vulnerable to physical punishment? Are sufficient hygiene facilities available in schools? And is healthcare accessible for children with acute respiratory symptoms? How will the most vulnerable children, such as those living on the street or in refugee camps fare? Data like these can provide guidance for UNICEF and country programmes so that our efforts to mitigate and overcome the effects of the pandemic can be measured.