Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Economic, social, and psychologic stressors are associated with an increased risk for abusive injuries in children. Prolonged physical proximity between adults and children under conditions of severe external stress, such as witnessed during the COVID-19 pandemic with “shelter-in-place orders”, may be associated with additional increased risk for child physical abuse. This study hypothesized that child physical abuse rates and associated severity of injury would increase during the early months of the pandemic as compared to the prior benchmark period. A nine-center retrospective review of suspected child physical abuse admissions across the Western Pediatric Surgery Research Consortium was conducted. Cases were identified for the period of April 1-June 30, 2020 (COVID-19) and compared to the identical period in 2019. Patient demographics, injury characteristics, and outcome data were also collected.

This study examined patterns of sexual violence against adults and children in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform sexual violence prevention, protection, and response efforts. A prospective cross-sectional research design was used with data collected from March to August 2020.

In France, the COVID-19 pandemic led to a general lockdown from mid-March to mid-May 2020, forcing families to remain confined. This study hypothesized that children may have been victims of more physical abuse during the lockdown, involving an increase in the relative frequency of hospitalization. Using the national administrative database on all admissions to public and private hospitals (PMSI), all children aged 0–5 years hospitalized were selected and physically abused children based on ICD-10 codes were identified.

The COVID-19 pandemic represents a global and nationwide public health crisis. Although protective, socially restrictive measures may cause social isolation, which amounts to an increased ecological risk for mental health disturbance in vulnerable populations. Previous reports have suggested a significant association between the occurrence of public health crises and increased rates of multiple risk factors related to child mental health disturbances, domestic violence, and child-maltreatment. This study conducted a retrospective data review of reported child maltreatment cases from the National Family Safety Program during the period of September 2019 to September 2020. A descriptive analysis approach was used to compare rates before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Risk factors for child abuse and neglect and commonly used reporting mechanisms were highly affected by SARS-Cov-2 pandemic; yet, little is known about the effects of SARS-Cov-2 on rates of child abuse and neglect. To compare overall rates, demographics, types of abuse and acuity of child abuse and neglect encounters seen at one university health system for the 6 months before and after school closings due to the SARS-Cov-2 pandemic. Data was extracted from a database of billed ICD10 codes for child abuse and neglect including sexual abuse codes. There were 579 encounters for patients <18 years of age and 476 unique patients.