Children and COVID-19 Research Library

In 2020, Norwegian society was in lockdown for seven weeks due to the rapid spread of the corona virus. During this period, young people (YP) aged 13–20 years participated in a survey investigating risk perception and experiences related to COVID-19. Participants (n ¼ 244) were recruited from a popular website for youths in Norway. YP’s experience of risk was related to their concern about spreading the virus to close loved ones. They worried about their future with regards to education and social life. They called for more information directed at young people. Being informed and trusting the information received, decreased anxiety.

The public discourse around the COVID-19 pandemic has been strikingly quantitative. Worldwide, the mainstream media has regularly informed the public of confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths, including projections of worst-case scenarios drawn from esoteric epidemiological models. The prominence and visibility of data, regardless of its completeness or quality, underscored the threat of COVID-19 to policy makers and lay individuals alike. It also prompted governments to swiftly lock down their societies, despite the socioeconomic disruptions and human suffering associated with such lockdowns. The widespread media coverage of COVID-19 data and swift response from governments highlight the potency of real-time data, and contain important lessons for public health policy, which when applied, could raise the profile of other health issues and spur action among key stakeholders.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents were issued numerous, sometimes changing, safeguarding directives including social distancing, mask use, hygiene, and stay-at-home orders. Enacting these behaviors for the parent presented challenges, but the responsibility for children to follow protocol properly was an even more daunting undertaking. Self-efficacy is one of the most power predictors of health behavior and has been adapted to a context-specific crisis self-efficacy scale conducted on March20, 2020, captures real-time perceptions of parents as coronavirus anxieties peaked. The study reveals a relationship between self- and protective efficacy that is mediated by parents’ assessments of how informed they are about COVID-19. It also examines the role of perceived knowledge on information-seeking and scrutiny of pandemic information found online.

Since the beginning of the year, the world’s attention has rightly been focused on the spread of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the implementation of drastic mitigation strategies to limit disease transmission. However, public health information campaigns tailored to children are very rare. Now more than ever, at a time when some governments are taking populations out of lockdown and youth are returning to schools, children around the world need to fully grasp the modes of transmission of the disease, the health risks, the scientific notions of the immune system, the value of barrier measures, and the progress of scientific research. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, comics can be very useful for communicating quickly and effectively abstract and important information to children who might be under the influence of a large amount of sometimes contradictory information. Conveying precise, reliable, and accessible information to children is key in a world overwhelmingly impacted by the outbreak.

COVID-19 has claimed more than 1 million lives so far in 2020, but other infectious diseases have caused pneumonia-related mortality for decades. Although most children have less illness related to COVID-19 than adults, the potential secondary impacts of the pandemic could cause a reversal in progress in child survival.  Review of routine health information and programme data across several countries indicate that since the onset of the pandemic there have been reductions in the numbers of children who attend outpatient services and who receive correct diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and immunisation services. On World Pneumonia Day, on Nov 12, 2020, it is time to take stock of the key actions the global health community should be taking to support country efforts to strengthen primary health care and health information systems to accelerate progress in preventing child pneumonia infections and deaths.

Research has long observed the absence of gender in child care policy, media, and elections. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has invoked critical questions about child care and its importance to states’ economic recoveries around the world. In this research note, news coverage of child care in major Canadian daily newspapers is analyzed to explore whether and how news narratives regarding child care are shifting in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.

U-Report poll of 10,500 young people in 31 countries suggests most youth believe action is needed to combat COVID-19, but many still need safe and clear information.

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.