Children and COVID-19 Research Library

Physical child abuse affects 9 in every 1,000 children in the United States and associated traumatic injuries are often identified by the healthcare system. The COVID-19 pandemic has intensified risk factors for physical child abuse and increased avoidance of the healthcare system. This study examined the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on presentation and severity of physical child abuse. A retrospective, cross-sectional study utilizing the Pediatric Health Information System was performed. An interrupted time series analysis estimated the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the number of children <15 years old presenting with physical child abuse to children's hospitals from March 1st to June 30th of 2020 by comparing to those presenting during the same period for years 2016-2019. Hierarchical regression models estimated the effect of the pandemic on likelihood of operative intervention, ICU admission, traumatic brain injury, and mortality.

The lockdowns occurring across society because of the COVID-19 pandemic have had far-reaching consequences for children and adolescents. One immediate concern was what the impact of the comprehensive disease control measures on rates of violence and abuse against children and adolescents would be. This study aimed to establish rates of child abuse and degree of family conflict during the first COVID-19 lockdown spring 2020. Additionally, we aimed to investigate associations between preexisting and concurrent risk factors and abuse during these unique times.

COVID-19 has had a major impact on child abuse and neglect (CAN) in the U.S. leading to a change in the number of reported screened-in CAN investigations, missed prevention cases, and missed CAN cases. This paper aims to estimate the deficit number of CAN investigations and resultant estimated number of missed prevention and CAN cases due to the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. from March 2020 to December 2020.

In March 2020, when COVID-19 was acknowledged as a worldwide pandemic, many countries dedicated their efforts to mitigate the virus and its negative health outcomes. One of the most frequent solutions was forced lockdowns, which was found to be beneficial in decreasing the spread of the virus. Today, after a year of international efforts to diminish the virus, we are at a stage where we can see the impact of these measures on children during COVID-19. Specifically, we now need to reflect on what happened to the prevention of child maltreatment (CM) during this time.There is an accumulation of knowledge with respect to the dramatic decrease of CM reports to formal systems worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, researchers have been stressing that this decrease should not be attributed to an increase in the safety of children but rather due to the adverse impact of the lockdown on the system’s ability to see and protect children (e.g., Baron et al., 2020; Katz & Cohen, 2020). In addition, there is growing evidence that during COVID-19, various CM risk factors significantly increased (Conrad-Hiebner & Byram, 2020; Proulx et al., 2021; Rodriguez et al., 2020; Wu & Xu, 2020), such as parental job loss (Lawson et al., 2020), parental social isolation (Lee et al., 2021), and mental health issues (Russell et al., 2020). Adding to this, parental stress was found to be a major CM risk factor that increased during COVID-19 and an increase in self-reported child abuse was found for parents experiencing heightened stressors (Lawson et al., 2020).

Emerging research suggests that parents are experiencing heightened stress during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parental stress is a risk factor for harsh or punitive parenting, and this association may be exacerbated by the use of alcohol. We examine whether parental stress is associated with use of punitive parenting, as well as whether this association is modified by drinking pattern.

This study aims to explore the strategies that governments and civil society organisations implemented to prevent and respond to the anticipated rise in violence against women and/or children (VAWC) during the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. A scoping review and content analysis of online media reports.

Previous studies have found a high co-occurrence between Intimate Partner Violence exposure (IPVe) and other forms of victimization, such as physical and sexual abuse, yet little is known about this issue from community samples in Latin America or –in particular– Chile. To examine the prevalence, sociodemographic correlates and co-occurrence of IPVe with other youth victimizations in Chile. A secondary data analysis of the First Poly-victimization Survey in Children and Adolescents in Chile was conducted, which had 19,684 responses from 7th to 11th grade students attending publicly-funded, subsidized and independent schools in urban areas across the country.

Throughout the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers across the globe have attempted to understand how the health and socioeconomic crisis brought about by the coronavirus is affecting children’s exposure to violence. Since containment measures have disrupted many data collection and research efforts, studies have had to rely on existing data or design new approaches to gathering relevant information. This paper reviews the literature that has been produced on children’s exposure to violence during the pandemic, to understand emerging patterns and critically appraise methodologies to help inform the design of future studies. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research.