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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

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

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Gender roles, parenthood, and the ethics of care in pandemic media narratives pre- and post-Covid-19

AUTHOR(S)
Raffaella Baccolini; Chiara Xausa

Published: January 2023   Journal: European Journal of English Studies
Crises have always brought along transformations in gender identities, roles, and relations: while much has changed in Western culture regarding the role of women and notions of masculinity are also challenged, efforts to control female roles, bodies, and sexualities persist. For example, Susan Faludi’s The Terror Dream has described the post-9/11 age as an era of reconstituted “traditional” manhood, redomesticated femininity and nuclear family “togetherness.” The question that lies at the basis of this paper is whether – and if so, how –science fiction cinema continues to respond to moments of crisis and vulnerability through the old myth of protective manhood and feminine weakness. By identifying two cases of insecurity – climate change and the coronavirus pandemic – this study analyses a recent film (Bird Box, 2018) and two TV series on pandemic outbreaks from the US (Sweet Tooth, 2021) and Italy (Anna, 2021). All three works break new ground – though not devoid of limits – about family structures and parental care: while Bird Box proposes a reversal of gender roles, Anna elaborates on the notion of motherhood by presenting unconventional models of mothering; in Sweet Tooth, the ethics of care is extended to the relationship between humans, animals, and the endangered environment.
Children as an afterthought during COVID-19: defining a child-inclusive ethical framework for pandemic policymaking

AUTHOR(S)
Sydney Campbell; Franco A. Carnevale

Published: December 2022   Journal: BMC Medical Ethics
Following the SARS pandemic, jurisdictions around the world began developing ethical resource allocation frameworks for future pandemics—one such framework was developed by Thompson and colleagues. While this framework offers a solid backbone upon which decision-makers can rest assured that their work is driven by rigorous ethical processes and principles, it fails to take into account the nuanced experiences and interests of children and youth (i.e., young people) in a pandemic context. The current COVID-19 pandemic offers an opportunity to re-examine this framework from young people’s perspectives, informed by advances in childhood ethics and children’s rights. This paper revisits the Thompson et al. framework and propose adaptations to the ethical processes and values outlined therein. This work is informed by expertise in clinical ethics and literature related to impacts of COVID-19 and other pandemics on the health and well-being of children around the world, though with particular attention to Canada. During the processes of drafting this work, stakeholders were consulted—aligned with the approach used by Thompson and colleagues—to validate the interpretations provided. This study also proposes a new principle, namely practicability, to indicate the complex balance between what is possible and what is convenient that is required in ethically sound decisions in the context of services affecting young people. It outlines and discusses the strengths and limitations of our work and indicate next steps for scholars in the areas of childhood studies and child health.
An ethical analysis of the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health of children and adolescents

AUTHOR(S)
Raíssa Passos dos Santos; Eliane Tatsch Neves; Ivone Evangelista Cabral (et al.)

Published: June 2022   Journal: Escola Anna Nery
The COVID-19 pandemic has impacted the lives of children and adolescents around the world. Hence, this study aimed to examine how the pandemic has impacted children and adolescents in Brazil through an ethical analysis. An interpretive analysis of Brazilian research on child and adolescent health during the pandemic was conducted. Recognizing this ethical dimension is pivotal to shedding more light on how responses to crisis situations, such as the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, can be shaped and where the priorities for action are according to all interested parties, situating the child between these parts of interest. Our analysis highlighted both direct and indirect effects surrounding the decision-making processes for children in the COVID-19 pandemic reality. These decisional processes must sustain the child’s right to participation to ascertain that the action taken is in the child’s best interests. Nevertheless, the Brazilian reality has shown a structural exclusion of children’s voices in decisions affecting them, particularly concerning the effects of the pandemic on their lives. Further studies must be conducted to deepen the knowledge about children’s best interests and their participation in the actions planned during the pandemic.
Mask mandates for children during the COVID-19 pandemic: an international human rights perspective

AUTHOR(S)
Stephen Thomson

Published: March 2022   Journal: Scandinavian Journal of Public Health
Epidemiological and physical safety issues form the core of the debate on whether children should be mandated to wear face masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. Largely absent from this debate are the crucial implications of international human rights law. Although the World Health Organization and the United Nations Children's Fund have different mask-wearing recommendations for children aged 0-5 years, 6-11 years, and 12+ years, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child applies to children of all ages. Children's human rights under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other treaties require decision makers to tread particularly carefully when deciding whether to mandate mask-wearing for children. Special consideration must be given to the potential for any detrimental impact of mask-wearing on children's physical, psychological and psychosocial health and wellbeing. Other non-pharmaceutical interventions for children, such as physical distancing, good hand hygiene and improved indoor ventilation do not engage the legal complexities of mask-wearing and are a safer policy option for reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission.
Against COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children

AUTHOR(S)
Steven R. Kraaijeveld; Rachel Gur-Arie; Euzebiusz Jamrozik

Published: March 2022   Journal: Bioethics
COVID-19 vaccination of children has begun in a number of countries with provisional regulatory approval and public support. This article provides an ethical analysis of COVID-19 vaccination of healthy children. Specifically, it presents three of the strongest arguments that might justify COVID-19 vaccination of children: (a) an argument from paternalism, (b) an argument from indirect protection and altruism, and (c) an argument from global eradication. This article offers a series of objections to each of these arguments to show that none of them is currently tenable.
Education and an ethics of care when working with refugee families during COVID-19

AUTHOR(S)
Anne Keary; Andrea Reupert; Mervi Kaukko (et al.)

Published: February 2022   Journal: Early Years
Provision of early childhood education and care services for refugee families took on heightened challenges during COVID-19 restrictions. This study undertook a small-scale study to explore how Australian educators worked with and cared for refugee families during the COVID-19 outbreak in an urban Australian setting. This study emerges from a larger project that aimed to support social inclusion and cultural and linguistic diversity for refugee families in Australia. It draws on two group interviews conducted during a COVID-19 lockdown with four educators working with refugee families in early childhood education and care. Data analysis is framed by the ethics of care work of Carol Gilligan and Nel Noddings. On the basis of these theories and the interview data, two vignettes on an ethics of care were developed. The importance of being cared for and cared about and genuinely listening were identified as crucial aspects of the care provided to refugee children and their families.
COVID-19 vaccine trials with children: ethics pointers

AUTHOR(S)
Caesar Alimisnya Atuire; Sofía P. Salas; Katharine Wright (et al.)

Published: January 2022   Journal: BMJ Global Health
As healthcare authorities around the world strive to get as many citizens as possible vaccinated against the SAR-CoV-2 virus, many countries have begun including children in the population groups to be vaccinated. Properly designed clinical trials involving children are important to ensure safety, efficacy, and dosage of therapies in (developing) children. Within the complex health, social, and political scenario of the ongoing pandemic, ethics committees and policy makers in low-income and middle-income settings need to consider additional ethical questions when called on to review phase III COVID-19 vaccine trials involving in children. This article sets out some of the ethical questions to keep in mind before, during, and after the implementation of phase III COVID-19 vaccine trials in limited resource settings. Specifically, it discusses and offer succinct answers to the following questions: How relevant will the trial vaccine be for the population participating in the trial? Should vaccines that have not been approved for use among adults be approved for use in trials with children? Which children should be involved in COVID-19 vaccine trials? What criteria of informed consent are to be adopted with minors? Placebo versus an existing already approved vaccine? What specific duties of ancillary care should be taken into consideration for COVID-19 vaccines especially in low-income and middle-income countries? The answers offered here are considerations that can serve as ‘things to think about’ when reviewing or implementing COVID-19 trials involving children in low-income settings.
Kalayaan, katurungan, karangalan and kapwa: a provisional exploration of children’s responses to the Covid-19 pandemic through Philippine virtue ethics

AUTHOR(S)
Noah Romero

Published: September 2021   Journal: Pastoral Care in Education
This article presents a qualitative study in which families recorded themselves reading a child-friendly book about a bear in lockdown and combines ethnographic and autoethnographic methods to examine the reactions of home educated and traditionally schooled children during Aotearoa New Zealand’s Covid-19 lockdowns. This research theorizes data sourced from family reading sessions through the writings of Philippine psychologist Virgilio Enriquez and the indigenous Philippine concepts of kalayaan (relational autonomy), katurungan (justice), karangalan (self-respect) and kapwa (shared inner identity). In so doing, it looks to subjugated knowledge, home education, and children themselves to consider the epistemological and ontological possibilities intimated in interactions rooted in a heightened sense of responsibility and care.
Pandemic impacts for indigenous children and youth within Canada: an ethical analysis

AUTHOR(S)
Carly Heck; Meghan Eaker; Satya Cobos

Published: August 2021   Journal: Young
In response to new and exacerbated challenges imposed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Indigenous children and youth in Canada have developed innovative and holistic solutions to amplify their voices, continue cultural engagement and combat social isolation for themselves and their communities as a whole. In this analysis, we have selected three Indigenous philosophical tenets as an ethical orientation for discussion of how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting the well-being of Indigenous young people. The guiding values of interconnected relationships, holism and Indigenous-informed restorative justice help us interpret existing pandemic-specific literature and identify, define and prioritize considerations of child and youth well-being from an Indigenous-centred worldview. This analysis can (a) help inform future pandemic measures affecting Indigenous young people and (b) foster similar considerations for Indigenous communities in other regions of the world.
Ethical perplexities of researching with children in uncertain times: a dialogic approach

AUTHOR(S)
Claire Lee

Published: May 2021   Journal: International Studies in Sociology of Education
This article compares two studies, one pre- and one post-COVID-19, to consider the ethics of researching with children, especially during uncertain times. It argues that ethics are entwined with assumptions about children, ‘voice’, relational dynamics and representation. To reflect upon those assumptions and their ethical implications, the study draws upon three Bakhtinian dialogical principles: that the self is in its nature responsive and never fully knowable or complete; that meaning-making is a complex, dynamic, situated activity; and that finalisation is deeply unethical. It proposes a dialogic approach to researching with children as an ethical orientation which respects our common humanity and agency and allows for trust, sensitivity, responsive meaning-making, openness and inarticulacy. It also considers the perplexities of achieving dialogic relationships and meaningful dialogue with children, especially at times when researcher and participants may be separated physically in space and time and when methodological compromises may be unavoidable.
Global ethical considerations regarding mandatory vaccination in children

AUTHOR(S)
Julian Savulescu; Alberto Giubilini; Margie Danchin

Published: January 2021   Journal: The Jpurnal of Pediatrics
Whether children should be vaccinated against COVID-19 (or other infectious diseases such as influenza) and whether some degree of coercion should be exercised by the state to ensure high uptake depends, among other things, on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine. For COVID-19 these are currently unknown for children, with unanswered questions also on children’s role in transmission of the virus, the extent to which the vaccine will reduce transmission, and the expected benefit (if any) to the child. Ultimately, deciding whether to recommend that children receive a novel vaccine for a disease which is not a major threat to them, or to mandate the vaccine, requires precise information on risks, including disease severity and vaccine safety and effectiveness, and comparative evaluation of the alternatives, and of the levels of coercion associated with each. But the decision also requires balancing self-interest with duty to others, and liberty with utility. Separate to ensuring vaccine supply and access, we outline three requirements for mandatory vaccination from an ethical perspective: (1) whether the disease is a grave threat to the health of children and to public health; (2) positive comparative expected utility of mandatory vaccination and (3) proportionate coercion. We also suggest that the case for mandatory vaccine in children may be strong in the case of influenza vaccination during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cite this research | Open access | No. of pages: 21 | Language: English | Topics: Health | Tags: child health, COVID-19, ethical research, vaccination
Integrating public health ethics into shared decision-making for children during the COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Angira Patel; Dalia M. Feltman; Erin Talati Paquette

Published: December 2020   Journal: The Journal of Pediatrics
This commentary examines how values typically prioritized in public health ethics such as solidarity and justice can be integrated into SDM, where the individual child's best interest and caregiver preferences are often paramount. Additionally, it suggests a framework to integrate public health ethics into the traditional shared decision-making continuum using 4 scenarios that are examined for risks, benefits, settings, and appropriate levels of directiveness.
Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children: an ethical analysis with a global-child lens

AUTHOR(S)
Sydney Campbell; Carlo Cicero Oneto; Manav Preet Singh Saini (et al.)

Published: November 2020   Journal: Global Studies of Childhood
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the lives of children and adolescents in resource-limited countries have been significantly impacted in complex ways, while largely having their interests overlooked. The purpose of this colloquium is to examine these impacts across seven resource-limited nations and apply an ethical lens to examine the ways in which children and adolescents have been treated impermissibly.
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Research on violence against children during the COVID-19 pandemic
Institution: *UNICEF
Published: October 2020 UNICEF Publication
Research and data are important to draw attention to the experiences of children during the COVID-19 pandemic, to advocate for a range of protection services to be available during the crisis and beyond, and to inform the design of violence against children (VAC) prevention and response programmes. That said, the need for evidence must be balanced against the substantial risks to children, families and even researchers participating in violence-related research and data collection efforts. These risks are always present, but are likely to be amplified in the context of COVID-19, which may require rapid research, often via remote methods such as mobile phones or the Internet. This new UNICEF publication, Research on Violence against Children during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Guidance to inform ethical data collection and evidence generation, addresses key questions on generating VAC evidence that may arise during the pandemic and includes a decision tree (below) to guide those considering conducting research and data collection on VAC during COVID-19.

 
Digital Contact Tracing and Surveillance During COVID-19. General and child-specific ethical issues

AUTHOR(S)
Gabrielle Berman; Karen Carter; Manuel Garcia Herranz; Vedran Sekara

Balancing the need to collect data to support good decision-making versus the need to protect children from harm created through the collection of the data has never been more challenging than in the context of the global COVID-19 pandemic. The response to the pandemic has seen an unprecedented rapid scaling up of technologies to support digital contact tracing and surveillance. As the pandemic progresses, we are also likely to see the emergence of more applications that link datasets as we seek to better understand the secondary impacts of the pandemic on children and their families.

This working paper explores the implications for privacy as the linking of datasets increases the likelihood that children will be identifiable and consequently, the opportunities for (sensitive) data profiling. It also frequently involves making data available to a broader set of users or data managers.

While it is recognized that reuse of unidentifiable data could potentially serve future public health responses and research, the nature of, access to and use of the data now and in future necessitate accountability, transparency and clear governance processes. It requires that these be in place from the outset. These are needed to ensure that data privacy is protected to the greatest degree possible and that the limitations to the use of these data are clearly articulated.

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