Children and COVID-19 Research Library

This report is one in a series presenting findings from the Global COVID-19 Research Study. The results presented in this report focus on implications for child rights, drawing on data from our representative sample of 17,565 parents/caregivers and 8,069 children in our programme participants group. Comparisons with our general public sample are made in some places. The research presents differences in impact and needs of children by region, age, gender, disability, minority group, indicators of poverty and more.

As lockdown and school closure policies were implemented in response to the coronavirus, the federal government provided funding and relaxed its rules to support emergency food provision, but not guidance on best practices for effectiveness. Accordingly, cities developed a diverse patchwork of emergency feeding programs. This article uses qualitative data to provide insight into emergency food provision developed in five cities to serve children and families. Based on our qualitative analysis, we find that the effectiveness of local approaches appears to depend on: (i) cross‐sector collaboration, (ii) supply chains, and (iii) addressing gaps in service to increased risk populations.