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Children and COVID-19 Research Library

UNICEF Innocenti's curated library of COVID-19 + Children research

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676 - 690 of 1293
SARS-CoV-2 screening testing in schools for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities

AUTHOR(S)
Michael R. Sherby; Tyler J. Walsh; Albert M. Lai (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Neurodevelopmental Disorders
Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in schools primarily for typically developing children is rare. However, less is known about transmission in schools for children with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), who are often unable to mask or maintain social distancing. The objectives of this study were to determine SARS-CoV-2 positivity and in-school transmission rates using weekly screening tests for school staff and students and describe the concurrent deployment of mitigation strategies in six schools for children with IDD.
Mental health and wellbeing of 9–12-year-old children in Northern Canada before the COVID-19 pandemic and after the first lockdown

AUTHOR(S)
Julia Dabravolskaj; Mohammed K. A. Khan; Paul J. Veugelers (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: International Journal of Public Health

Children’s mental health and wellbeing declined during the first COVID-19 lockdown (Spring 2020), particularly among those from disadvantaged settings. This study compared mental health and wellbeing of school-aged children observed pre-pandemic in 2018 and after the first lockdown was lifted and schools reopened in Fall 2020. In 2018, it surveyed 476 grade 4–6 students (9–12 years old) from 11 schools in socioeconomically disadvantaged communities in Northern Canada that participate in a school-based health promotion program targeting healthy lifestyle behaviours and mental wellbeing. In November-December 2020, we surveyed 467 grade 4–6 students in the same schools. The 12 questions in the mental health and wellbeing domain were grouped based on correlation and examined using multivariable logistic regression.

School teachers’ self-reported fear and risk perception during the COVID-19 pandemic: a nationwide survey in Germany

AUTHOR(S)
Stefanie Weinert; Anja Thronicke; Maximilian Hinse (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
With the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) cases peaking and health systems reaching their limits in winter 2020/21, schools remained closed in many countries. This survey was conducted in Germany to better understand teachers’ risk perception. Participants were recruited through various associations and invited to take part in a cross-sectional COVID-19-specific online survey. Descriptive statistical analysis was performed. Factors associated with teachers’ fears of contracting the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2) were evaluated with an adjusted multivariable regression analysis. The median age of the 6753 participating teachers was 43 years, and 77% were female. Most teachers worked in high schools (29%) and elementary schools (26%).
School parks as a community health resource: use of joint-use parks by children before and during COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Kevin Lanza; Casey P. Durand; Melody Alcazar (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: International Journal of Environmental Research of Public Health
Parks are settings for physical activity that can support the physical and mental health of children during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study determined the impact of the pandemic on the use of joint-use parks outside of school hours by children in Austin, TX, United States. In autumn of 2019 and autumn of 2020 (i.e., before and during the COVID-19 pandemic), an adapted version of the System for Observing Play and Recreation in Communities was used to observe whether children aged 1–12 participated in physical activity (i.e., sedentary, light and moderate, vigorous) at three parks located at schools serving mostly economically disadvantaged Latinx families. In 2020, it was also observed whether children maintained social distance and wore face coverings.
COVID-19-associated school closures and related efforts to sustain education and subsidized meal programs, United States, February 18–June 30, 2020

AUTHOR(S)
Nicole Zviedrite; Jeffrey D. Hodis; Ferdous Jahan (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Plos One
Pre-emptive school closures are frontline community mitigation measures recommended by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for implementation during severe pandemics. This study describes the spatiotemporal patterns of publicly announced school closures implemented in response to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and assesses how public K-12 districts adjusted their methods of education delivery and provision of subsidized meals. During February 18–June 30, 2020, it used daily systematic media searches to identify publicly announced COVID-19–related school closures lasting ≥1 day in the United States (US).
Education system of Nepal: impacts and future perspectives of COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Khadka Bahadur Pal; Buddha Bahadur Basnet; Ramesh Raj Pant (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Heliyon
The academic sectors are badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic globally. The studies regarding the implications of COVID-19 in education in Nepal were minimal, thus, this paper aims to highlight the impacts of the pandemic on the education sector of Nepal. It is revealed that the Nepalese academia has been facing problems due to lack of adequate and appropriate sustainable infrastructure for the online system, including skilled human resources. In addition, limited internet facilities in remote and rural areas were the other challenging tasks for virtual academic activities. Therefore, the concerned stakeholders should provide necessary services and appropriate strategies for virtual means of the education system to compensate the repercussion caused by the pandemic. This study could be helpful to identify the critical needs emerged due to the pandemic at present and in future and also contribute to adopt appropriate policy for the revival of educational institutions.
Education response to COVID 19 pandemic, a special issue proposed by UNICEF: editorial review

AUTHOR(S)
Nicolas Reuge; Robert Jenkins; Matt Brossard (et al.)

Institution: *UNICEF
Published: September 2021   Journal: International Journal of Educational Development
This editorial paper presents 11 papers related to the special issue proposed by UNICEF on the Education Response to COVID-19. The COVID-19 pandemic provoked an education emergency of unprecedented scale. At its onset in February 2020, school closures were announced in the worst-hit countries. At the peak of the crisis, 90 per cent of learners worldwide had had their education disrupted. Some learners, especially those from the most marginalised population groups, were put at risk of permanent dropout, provoking long-term and significant negative effects on children’s life-long wellbeing and the socio-economic development of their communities and countries. This special issue, which received contributions from UNICEF staff and various researchers, focuses on the impact of school closures, the effectiveness of remote learning solutions, equity implications, the mitigation of learning loss and notions around re-opening better.
Factors associated with changes in movement behaviors in toddlers and preschoolers during the COVID-19 pandemic: A national cross-sectional study in Mexico

AUTHOR(S)
Alejandra Jáuregui; Gabriela Argumedo; Catalina Medina (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Preventive Medicine Reports
Little is known about physical activity, screen time and sleep among Mexican toddlers and preschoolers. The COVID-19 pandemic led to the closure of childcare education centers and restrictions to spend time outdoors. This study aimed to investigate the correlates of changes in movement behaviors from before to during the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown in a national sample of toddlers and preschoolers in Mexico. A cross-sectional study was conducted using an open online survey completed by caretakers of children aged 1–5 years from April to July 2020. The questionnaire enquired about the time spent in each movement behavior during a regular week before and during lockdown, and family and household characteristics. Factors associated with changes in movement behaviors were explored using adjusted linear regression models.
School's out: parenting stress and screen time use in school-age children during the COVID-19 pandemic

AUTHOR(S)
Diane Seguin; Elizabeth Kuenzel; J Bruce Morton (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Affective Disorders Reports

During the COVID-19 pandemic, millions of children abruptly moved to online schooling, which required high levels of parental involvement. Family routines were disrupted, potentially increasing parental stress, and may be reflected in greater media screen time use in children. To determine whether (1) parenting styles and (2) parenting stress were associated with children's screen time use during the pandemic compared to the pre-pandemic period.

The impact of Covid-19 on children's active travel to school in Vietnam

AUTHOR(S)
Minh Hieu Nguyen; Dorina Pojani; Thanh Chuong Nguyen (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Transport Geography
This is among the first studies to provide empirical evidence on active school travel rates and determinants before and after the first Covid-19 lockdown in spring 2020. This study has collected and analyzed primary survey data on the school travel patterns of 472 school-age children in Hanoi, Vietnam. The findings show that the Covid-19 pandemic has been quite detrimental: once schools reopened, the prevalence of active school travel decreased from 53% to less than 31%. Where parents, especially mothers, did not face barriers to motorized travel, they assumed the role of chauffeur. Parents who were more concerned about community infections were more motivated to shift children to motorized modes. Walking was more affected than cycling because it was seen as more likely to lead to physical contact and virus transmission. Active school travel dropped more steeply in urban districts (as opposed to poorer, non-urban districts) and in those areas where home-school distances were the largest. It appears that the most common perceptions around barriers to active school travel have been exacerbated during the pandemic as parents and children adapt to “the new normal”.
Barriers and benefits of caregivers' involvement in children's education during COVID-19 school closures

AUTHOR(S)
Xiao Zhang

Published: September 2021   Journal: International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction
School closures during the COVID-19 pandemic have forced many children around the world to spend unprecedented amounts of time at home, and the responsibility for educating children, especially young ones, has largely fallen to parents and caregivers. Using a sample of 764 households with preschool children in Wuhan, China, where the pandemic originated, this study examined the impact of the pandemic on primary caregivers' involvement in their children's education at home, and the barriers and benefits of such involvement for preschool children's learning and well-being.
COVID-19 employment status, dyadic family relationships, and child psychological well-being

AUTHOR(S)
Ming-Te Wang; Daphne A. Henry; Juan Del Toro (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Adolescent Health

COVID-19 has led to soaring unemployment rates and the widespread adoption of working-from-home (WFH) arrangements that have disrupted family relationships and adolescent psychological well-being. This longitudinal study investigated how parental employment status (i.e., job loss and WFH) influenced adolescents' daily affect indirectly through family functioning (i.e., parent-adolescent conflict and parental warmth) and whether these links varied by family's socioeconomic status. Daily-diary approaches were used to collect dyadic parent-adolescent data from a nationwide American sample (6,524 daily assessments from 447 parent-adolescent dyads; 45% black, 36% white, 10% Latinx, 7% Asian American, 2% Native American) over the course of 15 consecutive days at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

How has COVID-19-related income loss and household stress affected adolescent mental health in Kenya?

AUTHOR(S)
Jessie Pinchoff; Elizabeth Layard Friesen; Beth Kangwana (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: Journal of Adolescent Health

Adolescent mental health has been under-researched, particularly in Africa. COVID-19-related household economic stress and school closures will likely have adverse effects. We investigate the relationship among adolescent mental health, adult income loss, and household dynamics during the pandemic in Kenya. A cross-sectional mobile phone-based survey was conducted with one adult and adolescent (age 10–19 years) pair from a sample of households identified through previous cohort studies in three urban Kenyan counties (Nairobi, Kilifi, Kisumu). Survey questions covered education, physical and mental health, and COVID-19-related impacts on job loss, food insecurity, and healthcare seeking. Logistic regression models were fit to explore relationships among adult income loss, household dynamics, food insecurity, and adult and adolescent depressive symptoms (defined as PHQ-2 score ≤2).

The association between school closures and child mental health during COVID-19

AUTHOR(S)
Matt Hawrilenko; Emily Kroshus; Pooja Tandon (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: JAMA Network Open

In-person schooling has been disrupted for most school-aged youth during the COVID-19 pandemic, with low-income, Black, and Hispanic populations most likely to receive fully remote instruction. Disruptions to in-person schooling may have negatively and inequitably affected children’s mental health. This study aims to estimate the association between school closures and child mental health outcomes and how it varies across sociodemographic factors.

Measuring and forecasting progress in education: what about early childhood?

AUTHOR(S)
Linda M. Richter; Jere R. Behrman; Pia Britto (et al.)

Published: September 2021   Journal: npj Science of Learning
A recent Nature article modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to education (SDG 4). However, their paper entirely overlooks inequalities in achieving Target 4.2, which aims to achieve universal access to quality early childhood development, care and preschool education by 2030. This is an important omission because of the substantial brain, cognitive and socioemotional developments that occur in early life and because of increasing evidence of early-life learning’s large impacts on subsequent education and lifetime wellbeing. This study provides an overview of this evidence and uses new analyses to illustrate medium- and long-term implications of early learning, first by presenting associations between pre-primary programme participation and adolescent mathematics and science test scores in 73 countries and secondly, by estimating the costs of inaction (not making pre-primary programmes universal) in terms of forgone lifetime earnings in 134 countries. This study finds considerable losses, comparable to or greater than current governmental expenditures on all education (as percentages of GDP), particularly in low- and lower-middle-income countries. In addition to improving primary, secondary and tertiary schooling, it concludes that to attain SDG 4 and reduce inequalities in a post-COVID era, it is essential to prioritize quality early childhood care and education, including adopting policies that support families to promote early learning and their children’s education.
676 - 690 of 1293

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COVID-19 & Children: Rapid Research Response

UNICEF Innocenti is mobilizing a rapid research response in line with UNICEF’s global response to the COVID-19 crisis. The initiatives we’ve begun will provide the broad range of evidence needed to inform our work to scale up rapid assessment, develop urgent mitigating strategies in programming and advocacy, and preparation of interventions to respond to the medium and longer-term consequences of the COVID-19 crisis. The research projects cover a rapid review of evidence, education analysis, and social and economic policies.