Children and COVID-19 Research Library

The wealth of the  world’s 10 richest men has doubled since the pandemic began. The incomes of 99% of humanity are worse off because of COVID-19. Widening economic, gender, and racial inequalities—as well as the inequality that exists between countries—are tearing our world apart. This is not by chance, but choice: “economic violence” is perpetrated when structural policy choices are made for the richest and most powerful people. This causes direct harm to us all, and to the poorest people, women and girls, and racialized groups most. Inequality contributes to the death of at least one person every four seconds. But it is possible to radically redesign our economies to be centered on equality. It is possible to claw back extreme wealth through progressive taxation; invest in powerful, proven inequality-busting public measures; and boldly shift power in the economy and society. If we are courageous, and listen to the movements demanding change, we can create an economy in which nobody lives in poverty, nor with unimaginable billionaire wealth—in which inequality no longer kills.

Although negative associations of COVID-19 pandemic high school closures with adolescents’ health have been demonstrated repeatedly, some research has reported a beneficial association of these closures with adolescents’ sleep. The present study was, to our knowledge, the first to combine both perspectives. This study aimed to investigate associations between adolescents’ sleep and health-related characteristics during COVID-19 pandemic school closures in Switzerland. This survey study used cross-sectional online surveys circulated among the students of 21 public high schools in Zurich, Switzerland. The control sample completed the survey under regular, prepandemic conditions (May to July 2017) and the lockdown sample during school closures (May to June 2020). Survey respondents were included in the study if they provided their sex, age, and school.

Children with medical complexity (CMC) and their caregivers are at increased risk for multiple psychosocial stressors that can impact child and family well-being and health outcomes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when access to supports diminished, psychosocial screening and integrated behavioral health (IBH) services in the primary care setting were crucial in identifying and addressing the unique needs of this population. Universal screening to identify psychosocial needs was implemented in a primary care clinic for CMC that includes IBH services. Data on the prevalence of psychosocial screening and IBH services for young children and their caregivers before and during the COVID-19 pandemic were evaluated.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought profound changes in people's live and work. It has also accelerated the development of education from traditional model to online model, which is particularly important in preschool education. Preschoolers communicate with teachers through online video, so how to provide high quality and low latency online teaching has become a new challenge. In cloud computing, users offload computing tasks to the cloud to meet the high computing demands of their devices, but cloud-based solutions have led to huge bandwidth usage and unpredictable latency. In order to solve this problem, mobile edge computing (MEC) deploys the server at the edge of the network to provide the service with close range and low latency. In task scheduling, edge computing (EC) devices have rational thinking, and they are unwilling to collaborate with MEC server to perform tasks due to their selfishness. Therefore, it is necessary to design an effective incentive mechanism to encourage the collaboration of EC devices.

Considering the concerns regarding the coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) vaccine safety among pediatric patients with inflammatory rheumatic diseases (IRD) due to a lack of data, an urgent need for studies evaluating safety profiles of vaccines emerged. Among participants vaccinated by CoronaVac inactive SARS-CoV-2 or BNT162b2 messenger RNA (mRNA) COVID-19 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine, healthy children under 18 and patients under 21 with an at least 1-year follow-up period in our department for a childhood-onset rheumatic disease were included into this cross-sectional study.

This study explored whether COVID-19 disproportionately affected women in the labor market using Current Population Survey data through the end of 2020. It found that male–female gaps in the employment-to-population ratio and hours worked for women with school-age children have widened but not for those with younger children. Triple-difference estimates are consistent with most of the reductions observed for women with school-age children being attributable to additional childcare responsibilities (the “COVID motherhood penalty”). Conducting decompositions, it found women had a greater likelihood to telework, higher education levels and a less-impacted occupational distribution, which all contributed to lessening negative impacts relative to men.

This study investigated prevalence of psychological distress, factors associated with distress, and experiences of Adolescents and Young Adults (AYAs) with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also compared distress in this group to previously surveyed Canadian AYAs with cancer in 2018 by the Young Adults with Cancer in their Prime (YACPRIME) study. A cross-sectional, online, self-administered survey of AYAs diagnosed with cancer between 15 and 39 years of age was conducted. Psychological distress was measured by the Kessler Psychological Distress Scale (K10). Associations between variables and high psychological distress (K10 ≥ 25), and comparison of prevalence of psychological distress with the YACPRIME study were done using multivariable logistic regression. Summative qualitative content analysis analyzed participant experiences during this pandemic.

The current study examines if perceived negative changes due to COVID-19 are related to adolescent loneliness, stress and depressive symptoms and whether friendship factors (online friend communication, friend support) serve a protective role in these associations. In total, 993 adolescents (Mage = 16.09, SD = 1.24) from ethnically diverse backgrounds (49% White, 18% Asian/Asian-American, 14% Latinx, 9% Black/African-American, 10% Other) in the United States completed an online survey. Adolescents who perceived more negative changes due to COVID-19 reported more loneliness, stress and depressive symptoms. For loneliness and stress, these associations were qualified by interactions with the friendship factors. Among adolescents with low online friend communication, as perceived negative changes increased, loneliness also increased. At high levels of friend communication, there was no link between negative COVID-19 changes and loneliness. Friend communication and support may protect adolescents from well-being problems stemming from the negative changes in their life due to COVID-19.

Children vaccination is a key intervention for their survival, especially among refugees. Yet, children vaccination registration is done manually in refugees camps and there is no possibility to send reminders to parents to come back on time. This study aimed to boost the parental registration of children’s vaccination records on a Children Immunization app (CIMA) while also availing the parents with useful parenting skills under COVID-19-related stress. It incorporated United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Parenting Skills under COVID-19 information material, through CIMA in Arabic and English languages. 1100 children were recruited in February–March 2021, through a community health promotion dissemination approach. A team of two nurses from the local population and two volunteers (one trained nurse and one trained social worker), from the camp, was formed. They promoted the CIMA app at two clinics and through households visits in Zaatari refugee camp. Qualitative data on impressions and observations of the interactions with the Zaatari camp community were also collected.

Natural disasters and times of crisis, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are extremely stressful events, with severe mental health consequences. However, such events also provide opportunities for prosocial support between citizens, which may be related to mental health symptoms and interpersonal needs. This study examined adolescents’ prosocial experiences as both actors and recipients during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic and assessed whether these experiences were associated with indicators of mental health. Adolescents (N = 426; 78% female) aged 13 to 20 years (Mage = 16.43, SD = 1.10; 63.6% White, 12.9% Hispanic/Latinx, 8.5% Asian, 4.2% Black, 2.8% Native American) were recruited across the US in early April of 2020. Participants reported on their COVID-19 prosocial experiences (helping others, receiving help) and mental health (depressive symptoms, anxiety symptoms, burdensomeness, belongingness). Multiple regression models indicated greater engagement in COVID-19 prosocial behavior was associated with greater anxiety symptoms and greater burdensomeness.

Italy was affected greatly by Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), emerging mainly in the Italian province of Lombardy. This outbreak led to profound governmental interventions along with a strict quarantine. This quarantine may have psychosocial impact on children and parents in particular. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of 8 weeks COVID-19 quarantine on psychosocial functioning of Italian parents and their children. In this cross-sectional survey, we included parents and children resided in Italy during the 8 weeks COVID-19 quarantine. We evaluated social and emotional functioning, clinical symptoms possibly related to emotional distress, and change in perspectives using a questionnaire.