Children's understanding of COVID-19 and the flu in three demographically distinct U.S. communities

Children's understanding of illness reflects their developing views of the biological world and predicts the protective measures they engage in. However, most of the research to date has focused on children from the communities surrounding research universities and as such might not provide a generalizable view of how children across the United States think about illnesses and viruses. This is of particular concern with regard to the COVID-19 pandemic, as Black and Latinx communities experienced more hospitalizations and deaths, and rural conservative communities were the targets of misinformation. We examined beliefs about two illnesses (COVID-19 and the flu) in 5- to 12-year-old children (N = 313) and their parents (N = 194), from three different types of communities across the United States: university communities (N_children = 104; N_parents = 64), low-socioeconomic-status Black and Latinx communities (N_children = 101; N_parents = 64), and low-socioeconomic-status White rural conservative communities (N_children = 108; N_parents = 65). We found that children had a good understanding of the external processes involved in disease transmission but showed gaps and misconceptions about the internal biological processes; accuracy increased with age. The patterns of responding were largely similar across the three types of communities. Nonetheless, sociodemographic variables related to children's and parents' knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors toward illness. Overall, this study provides a comprehensive view of how children in different communities across the United States think about illness and viruses. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).