Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This commentary aims to examine the crucial role of dissemination and implementation (D&I) science—the study of methods to promote adoption and integration of evidence-based research in real-world policy or practice—to improve public health post–COVID-19. D&I science was created for this very situation, in which scientific knowledge is greatly needed but only if it holds practical relevance for the policy, environmental, and organizational systems that advance health. The paper discusses the application of D&I science to rapid evaluations of federal child nutrition assistance programs deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This article focuses on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on child health in sub-Saharan Africa. It reviews the epidemiology of major pediatric diseases and, referencing modeling projections, discuss the short- and long-term impact of the pandemic on major disease control. It also deliberates on potential complications of SARS-CoV-2 co-infections/co-morbidities and identify critical social and ethical issues. Furthermore, this article aims to highlight the paucity of COVID-19 data and clinical trials in this region and the lack of child participants in ongoing studies. Lastly, approaches and interventions to mitigate the pandemic’s impact on child health outcomes are discussed.

The progress in reducing child mortality around the world has been remarkable. Under-five mortality rates have declined by almost 60 per cent since 1990, and as a result millions more children survive to adolescence today than they did three decades ago. The impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, however, threatens years of improvement in child and adolescent survival through the interruption of essential health services. Even before the coronavirus captured the world’s attention, it was clear that if survival targets were to be met, resources and policy would need to be geared towards accelerating progress and not just maintaining it.

This study describes the experience of an integrated project of telehealth and hospital-based home care (HBHC) for noncritical patients in active anticancer treatment in a tertiary care pediatric oncohematology center.

This survey aimes to gain initial insight from country key informants into the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on essential health services across the life course. The survey results in this interim report can improve our understanding of the extent of disruptions across all services, the reasons for disruptions, and the mitigation strategies countries are using to maintain service delivery.

The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in large-scale changes to the National Health Service (NHS) systems in the UK to accommodate a predicted surge in acutely unwell adults presenting to emergency and critical care departments. This article describes a rapid, multicentre surveillance project with three main aims: (1) to identify the number of children with delayed presentations to hospital in large emergency departments; (2) to find out what proportion of these delays was due to hesitance of parents in attending versus the proportion that was due to advice from primary care staff or NHS 111 referrals; and (3) to find out whether these delays might have resulted in harm to children (using admission to hospital as a proxy).

Since COVID-19 in the pediatric population is infrequently severe, the indirect costs of the pandemic, related to the measures implemented to deal with the spread of the virus, can be worse than the infection itself. To assess this issue, this study evaluates the number of children vaccinated or evaluated for the most common diseases in a poor village in Sierra Leone, showing a worrisome drop in vaccinations performed and children evaluated for acute diseases. Preliminary findings highlight that support is needed to guarantee basic services to children during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in poor settings where preventive measures can be lifesaving in the long term.

African migrants stimulate economic growth and development in areas of destination, transit and origin through their labour, skills transfer, consumption and investments. Their remittances also make significant contributions to food security, human capital, rural development and overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in areas of origin. The impact of COVID-19 affects migrant workers disproportionally. Often precarious working conditions and overcrowded living and transport arrangements increase their vulnerability to contagion and loss of employment, threatening their health and livelihoods. Those working under informal arrangements, commonly in the agriculture sector, are largely excluded from accessing real-time reliable information, social protection, healthcare and government response measures.

Updates for many countries have made it possible to estimate hunger in the world with greater accuracy this year. In particular, newly accessible data enabled the revision of the entire series of undernourishment estimates for China back to 2000, resulting in a substantial downward shift of the series of the number of undernourished in the world. Nevertheless, the revision confirms the trend reported in past editions: the number of people affected by hunger globally has been slowly on the rise since 2014. The report also shows that the burden of malnutrition in all its forms continues to be a challenge. There has been some progress for child stunting, low birthweight and exclusive breastfeeding, but at a pace that is still too slow. Childhood overweight is not improving and adult obesity is on the rise in all regions.The report complements the usual assessment of food security and nutrition with projections of what the world may look like in 2030, if trends of the last decade continue. Projections show that the world is not on track to achieve Zero Hunger by 2030 and, despite some progress, most indicators are also not on track to meet global nutrition targets. The food security and nutritional status of the most vulnerable population groups is likely to deteriorate further due to the health and socio economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic will vary for different groups of rural population, with the highest impact expected to be on farmers and other vulnerable groups, especially women and youth. Targeted support is feasible only by activating a network of actors or organizations within agricultural innovation systems (AIS) and promoting customized technologies and practices suitable for location specific contexts. his brief illustrates the extensive repository of good practices and technologies provided by FAO as part of its online knowledge portals. These practices and technologies can be easily adopted to respond to the needs of the smallholders, rural youth and women affected by lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, improve their food security and create income-generating opportunities. They have been applied and tested on the ground and packaged for the benefit of various AIS actors.

This discussion paper sets forth the lessons on urban vulnerability and safety, relevant to the security sector, emerging from coronavirus (Covid-19) and its related socioeconomic impacts on urban societies in low- and middle-income countries.

This overview recounts UN's key guidance, lessons and support so far – and points the way to the crucial steps that must follow to save lives, protect societies and recover better. It amounts to a recipe for a comprehensive response to and recovery from COVID-19 that will leave no one behind and address the very fragilities and gaps that made us so vulnerable to the pandemic in the first place. It also points the way toward building resilience to future shocks – above all from climate change – and toward overcoming the severe and systemic inequalities that have been so tragically exposed by the pandemic.

COVID-19 and TC Harold have severely affected Fijians’ short and long-term resilience as many are resorting to the use of detrimental coping strategies such as reduction in food intake, barter of assets, reduction of expenditure on health or education. Social protection schemes for marginalised groups exist but are limited and access was restricted by COVID-19 preventative measures, particularly for people with disabilities.

This briefing note seeks to guarantee the integration of gender equality and women’s empowerment in three inter-linked support areas and provide recommendations to Country Offices and governments in the Latin America and the Caribbean region for the implementation of gender-responsive policy measures to the COVID-19 emergency, ensuring that as a final goal no one is left behind. It also develops detailed recommendations regarding the social and economic impacts of the crisis.

Community-based health care is an essential part of primary care at all times; in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the distinct capacity of trusted community members for social engagement and delivering care where it is needed is ever more critical. This joint WHO, UNICEF and IFRC guidance addresses the role of community-based health care in the pandemic context. It includes practical recommendations for decision makers to help keep communities and health workers safe, to sustain essential services at the community level, and to ensure an effective response to COVID-19. Using this comprehensive and coordinated approach will help countries strengthen the resilience of community-based health services throughout the pandemic, into early recovery and beyond.