Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been a most important global issue since December 2019. Although for children, the clinical course of COVID-19 is milder, it may still cause a multi-system inflammatory syndrome and has rendered 22,000 deaths among children and young people. The objective of this review is to provide an up-to-date information about COVID-19 related mortality and relevant risk factors in children and young people. This study provides a narrative review of COVID-19 related mortality and relevant risk factors in children and young people. Electronic searches for studies were conducted using PubMed and Web of Science, with a date time up to April 22, 2022. 22, 2022. Only publications in English were included.

Cases of early marriage are reported to have increased during the pandemic due to stressed teenagers with the pressure of online learning. The increase in this number plays a role in increasing the risk of teenage pregnancy. This study aimed to analyse the risk factors for adolescent pregnancies during the new normal era of the COVID-19 pandemic. A case-control design using a simple random sampling technique involved 40 pregnant adolescents aged 15-19 years and 80 non-pregnant adolescents during the online learning period (July 2021 to January 2022) in Ngawi Regency, Indonesia. Data obtained from interviews were analysed to find Odds Ratio (OR) with a 95% Confidence Interval (CI).

Youth engagement in disaster risk reduction is a growing area of research, practice and policy. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for improved opportunities for youth to participate and have their voices heard. Our Photovoice study explores experiences, perceptions, and insights of youth regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, while providing an opportunity for youth to participate in disaster risk reduction and contribute to resilient communities. Nine focus groups were conducted from February 2019 to August 2020 with four teenaged youth; the data were analyzed using reflexive thematic analysis and hosted two virtual Photovoice exhibitions.

Concerns that athletes may be at a higher risk for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) transmission has led to reduced participation in sports during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to assess COVID-19 incidence and transmission during the spring 2021 high school and college water polo seasons across the United States. This prospective observational study enrolled 1825 water polo athletes from 54 high schools and 36 colleges. Surveys were sent to coaches throughout the season, and survey data were collected and analyzed.

Obesity is a well-recognized risk factor for critical illness and death among adult patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. This study aimed to characterize the clinical outcomes and risk factors of death related to obesity in a cohort of hospitalized paediatric patients with COVID-19. It performed an analysis of all paediatric patients with obesity and COVID-19 registered in SIVEP-Gripe, a Brazilian nationwide surveillance database, between February 2020 and May 2021. The primary outcome was time to death, which was evaluated by using cumulative incidence function.

The physical closing of schools due to COVID-19 has disrupted both student learning and family logistics. There is significant pressure for in-person learning to remain open for all children. However, as is expected with outbreaks of novel infections, vaccines and other pharmaceutical therapeutics may not be instantly available. This raises serious public health questions about the risks to children and society at large. The best protective measures for keeping young children in school focus on behaviors that limit transmission. It is therefore critical to understand how we can engage children in age-appropriate ways that will best support their ability to adhere to protocols effectively. This study aims to synthesize published studies with new results to investigate the earliest ages at which children form an understanding of infection risk and when they can translate that understanding effectively to protective action.

Understanding of SARS-CoV-2 infection in US children has been limited by the lack of large, multicenter studies with granular data. This study aims to examine the characteristics, changes over time, outcomes, and severity risk factors of children with SARS-CoV-2 within the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C). It is a prospective cohort study of encounters with end dates before September 24, 2021, was conducted at 56 N3C facilities throughout the US. Participants included children younger than 19 years at initial SARS-CoV-2 testing.

The UNICEF Evaluation Office, in collaboration with Communication for Development (C4D) section in the UNICEF Programme Group and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, developed the Community Rapid Assessment (CRA) exercise as a way to measure the protective practices, health-seeking behaviours, coping strategies and emerging needs of individuals and households in relation to COVID-19. The primary objective was to provide UNICEF country offices valuable data to strengthen the evidence base and inform country-level programming in response to the pandemic. The CRA is also intended to contribute to UNICEF’s overall analytical agenda on COVID in an effort to better position this type work in the overall corporate efforts. Its findings have thus far provided a rich and much-needed picture of the behavioural component of the outbreak at the individual and community levels. In making use of time-series data – that is, the longitudinal data repeatedly captured over several waves of data collection – the CRA has also provided further opportunities to examine country- and region-specific trends over time. And because the CRA is a real-time exercise, analysis, visualization and interpretation of findings are already being used in several country-level fora to guide program changes. The long-term vision is to embed capacity for similar surveys within government data systems at the country level. This report presents early findings and insights from eight countries in Eastern and Southern Africa – namely Angola, Ethiopia, Kenya, Madagascar, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan and Uganda.

The World Health Organization and many national health authorities identifie pregnant women as requiring extra protections during the COVID-19 global pandemic. Nevertheless, many initial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic were implemented in ways that have disrupted the care and support women receive and provide during pregnancy. This article applys an intersectional approach to explore the unintended implications of discourses and practices targeting universal risks of COVID-19 for pregnant women. It discusses three overlapping topics. First, pandemic responses that aimed to negate the universal risk of COVID-19 transmission created obstacles to maternal health care that disproportionately impacted low-income women and regions. For example, rapidly changing public health mandates that were intended to protect the population from the universal threat of COVID-19 have produced unintended results of restricting public transportation, and consequently, access to maternal care. Second, overly precautious healthcare practices aimed at protecting foetuses and new-borns from possible risks can harm women and their new-borns. Recommendations, such as separating women from their new-borns at birth to prevent the spread of COVID-19, are shown to be often entangled with racism and colonialism. Third, in neoliberal contexts, dominant discourses have constructed privileged women as ‘normal’ in a way that responsibilised all women to minimise health risks for their foetuses. Such recommendations ignore inequalities in women’s living conditions and ability to follow public health advice about COVID-19.

The COVID-19 outbreak and related restrictions meant a higher incidence of screen-related risk behaviors in both children and adolescents. Our goal was to assess the perceived importance and extent of school-based preventions related to these risks during the long-term, nation-wide distant schooling period in the Czech Republic. The online survey was responded to by the school-based prevention specialists (N = 1698). For the analysis, within-subject analysis of variance (ANOVA) and binominal logistic regression were used. At-risk internet use and cyber-bullying were perceived as pressing, but other risks, for example, excessive internet use or the use of cyberpornography, received substantially less priority

There may be sex differences in BMI and blood pressure levels in school-age children, especially in the face of lifestyle changes. This study aimed to explore sex differences in changes in BMI and blood pressure in Chinese school-aged children during the COVID-19 quarantine. The cohort study of 445 school-aged children examined the change of BMI and blood pressure during the five-month quarantine. Multivariable Cox regression models were created to identify potential predictors of overweight, obesity, and elevated blood pressure (EBP).

Children and adolescents who experience a prolonged state of physical isolation during COVID-19 may look for alternative, attractive or unconventional forms of socialization, available in the web world. This may expose them to the risks of unsupervised cyberspace exploration beyond the open web, which may lead them to areas that are usually not available to visitors. They may pass the gates of the “open” and “deep web” sections and enter into the dangerous “dark web” zones, which predominantly host unethical and criminal activities. In those shadowy corners of the worldwide web, there exist dangers ranging from identity theft and drug trade to suicide chat-rooms and child pornography. This commentary, authored by EPA-UNEPSA members of the working group on social pediatrics, briefly discusses the features of the dark web and its implications for children and adolescents. The aim is to raise awareness of pediatricians and families on the growing risk of child exploitation through the web, at a time when vulnerable young people face home lockdowns with potential abusers intruding on their privacy.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) has resulted in more than 11·6 million cases of COVID-19 and 538 000 deaths as of July 7, 2020.

Whether asthma constitutes a risk factor for coronavirus disease‐2019 (COVID‐19) is unclear. Here, we aimed to assess whether asthma, the most common chronic disease in children, is associated with higher COVID‐19 risk or severity in pediatric populations.