Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The COVID‐19 pandemic is the most serious global public health crisis since the 1918 influenza pandemic. This study is the first to assess its mental health impact across the lifespan in the United States in adolescents, adults, and health care workers.

This global progress report on water, sanitation, hygiene, waste management and cleaning (WASH) in health care facilities comes at an unprecedented moment, when coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is exposing key vulnerabilities in health systems, such as inadequate infection prevention and control. WASH services in health care facilities, so often taken for granted – or as this report highlights, outright neglected – are needed more than ever to protect vulnerable health workers and patients. The report identifies major global gaps in WASH services: one third of health care facilities do not have what is needed to clean hands where care is provided; one in four facilities lack basic water services, and one in 10 have no sanitation services.

The challenges of diagnosis of SARS-CoV2 infection in the paediatric population includes not only the mild nature of the disease, but the similarity in the symptomatology of the COVID-19 disease to common childhood illness, and the possibility that the infected children could be “silent transmitters” to the family members and health care workers [HCW]. The challenge raises the doubt on the level of preparedness, awareness of the child health facilities [HCF], and HCW in adopting measures at combatting the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This study evaluated the preparedness and response of HCF and HCW in paediatric settings to the 2019-novel coronavirus pandemic.

Evidence indicates that healthcare and social service providers (HSSPs) receive inadequate education related to recognizing and responding to child maltreatment. This is despite the fact HSSPs are identified as an important factor in the primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention of this childhood exposure. The need for online education for HSSPs’ is highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic restrictions and will continue to be relevant afterward. The objective of this commentary is to provide an overview of: (a) educational interventions for HSSPs’ related to recognizing and responding to child maltreatment; (b) the development of VEGA (Violence, Evidence, Guidance, Action), which is an online platform of educational resources to support HSSPs to recognize and respond to child maltreatment; and (c) the RISE (Researching the Impact of Service provider Education) project, which is an ongoing multi-province evaluation of VEGA in Canada.

Child abuse and neglect are high‐priority public health issues around the world, but it is known that early care for families with parenting anxiety and stress is essential for preventing abuse (World Health Organization, 2006). In Japan, the country has created a national campaign plan called The Second Term of Healthy Parents and Children 21 (2015‐2024) to address two prioritized agenda: (1) supporting parents with difficulties raising their children; and (2) preventing child abuse from pregnancy. Public health nurses (PHNs) play a crucial role in preventing child abuse and neglect by providing family healthcare in each municipality. In Japan, more than 70% of PHNs work for municipalities or prefectures covering people at various health stages from birth to old age, identifying health issues for infants and their parents before preschool through a variety of health checkups and home visits.

Research confirms that the mental health burdens following community-wide disasters are extensive, with pervasive impacts noted in individuals and families. It is clear that child disaster outcomes are worst among children of highly distressed caregivers, or those caregivers who experience their own negative mental health outcomes from the disaster. The current study used path analysis to examine concurrent patterns of parents’ (n = 420) experience from a national sample during the early months of the U.S. COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper tries to put up guidelines in preparing a stand-alone children’s emergency department. It takes into account triage, personal protective equipment, clinical guidelines, information sharing and personnel training.