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Published on: March 1, 2019
COVID-19 and Children's Well-Being: A Rapid Research Agenda
Rebecca N Dudovitz1,2, Shirley Russ1,3, Mary Berghaus1,3
1Department of Pediatrics, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Insights
The COVID-19 pandemic research agenda prioritizes children's mental health and resilience. It also focuses on mitigating disparities for children of color and strengthening community partnerships for better child well-being monitoring.
Area of Science:
- Public Health
- Child Development
- Maternal and Child Health (MCH)
Background:
- The COVID-19 pandemic has had profound effects on children, families, and communities in the U.S.
- Understanding these impacts is crucial for addressing immediate needs and preparing for future public health crises.
- A comprehensive research agenda is needed to guide efforts in mitigating harm and building resilience.
Purpose of the Study:
- To develop a research agenda focused on the mechanisms and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's healthy development.
- To identify strategies for devising and testing interventions to address urgent needs and prepare for future pandemics.
- To guide research that documents the scope of the problem, identifies solutions, and builds resilient response systems.
Main Methods:
- A series of virtual meetings were facilitated by the Life Course Intervention Research Network.
- Participants included members from 10 Maternal and Child Health (MCH) research programs, research and implementation partners, and family/community representatives.
- Stakeholders from academia, clinical practice, nonprofit organizations, and family advocacy groups participated across four meetings.
Main Results:
- Investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on children's mental health was identified as the highest research priority.
- Other key priorities include studying individual and community resilience, mitigating disparate effects on children of color, and strengthening measurement systems for child well-being.
- Prioritizing community-based research partnerships was also highlighted as a critical outcome.
Conclusions:
- Implementing the research agenda requires community and youth engagement as equal partners in research co-design.
- Centering anti-racist perspectives, adopting a strengths-based approach, and integrating young BIPOC researchers are essential.
- New collaborative funding models and investments in data infrastructure are necessary for successful enactment.
Purpose:
Understanding the full impact of COVID-19 on U.S. children, families, and communities is critical to (a) document the scope of the problem, (b) identify solutions to mitigate harm, and (c) build more resilient response systems. We sought to develop a research agenda to understand the short- and long-term mechanisms and impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on children's healthy development, with the goal of devising and ultimately testing interventions to respond to urgent needs and prepare for future pandemics.
Description:
The Life Course Intervention Research Network facilitated a series of virtual meetings that included members of 10 Maternal and Child Health (MCH) research programs, their research and implementation partners, as well as family and community representatives, to develop an MCH COVID-19 Research Agenda. Stakeholders from academia, clinical practice, nonprofit organizations, and family advocates participated in four meetings, with 30-35 participants at each meeting.
Assessment:
Investigating the impacts of COVID-19 on children's mental health and ways to address them emerged as the highest research priority, followed by studying resilience at individual and community levels; identifying and mitigating the disparate negative effects of the pandemic on children and families of color, prioritizing community-based research partnerships, and strengthening local, state and national measurement systems to monitor children's well-being during a national crisis.
Conclusion:
Enacting this research agenda will require engaging the community, especially youth, as equal partners in research co-design processes; centering anti-racist perspectives; adopting a "strengths-based" approach; and integrating young researchers who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC). New collaborative funding models and investments in data infrastructure are also needed.
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