Responding to COVID-19
Statement of Problem
Despite low COVID-19 community transmission rates and hospitalizations in most areas, children and families still face lingering effects on their health and well-being from the lockdowns, disruptions to education and access to health services, social isolation and experiences of loss in the U.S. since March 2020. Communities also continue to face obstacles as they navigate this next phase of the pandemic. Vaccination rates vary among different populations and geographic areas and children under the age of 12 are not yet eligible for the vaccine, leaving some vulnerable residents at higher risk for contracting and spreading the virus and fueling a sense of uncertainty as we head into the upcoming school year.
Description
At PolicyLab, we are grateful for the work of community and advocacy partners, frontline health and service providers, policymakers, public health and education leaders, and research colleagues in keeping families safe and healthy since the start of the pandemic. While much work has been done, there remain many concerning and inequitable lingering impacts for children and families, which we outline in this blog post. Below you will find additional resources and materials that represent some of the timely, critical areas—such as behavioral health, health equity and school safety—we continue to work on.
Monitoring COVID-19 transmission
- PolicyLab COVID-Lab: Mapping COVID-19 in Your Community — please note the team is no longer providing weekly projections, but the researchers will continue to monitor transmission and may return from time to time to update the models should cases pick up again.
- Forecasting COVID-19 Transmission Across Time in U.S. Counties
- COVID-19 Outlook: A Summer Resurgence as Schools Plan for Fall
- COVID-19 Outlook: Lessons Learned from a Year of Modeling the COVID-19 Pandemic
Keeping schools safely open
- Guidance for In-person Education in K-12 Educational Settings
- SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Public School District Employees Following a District-Wide Vaccination Program — Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, March 21–April 23, 2021
- On the Value of COVID-19 Testing for Children Beyond the Spring of 2021
- Assisting Childhood Education through Increased Testing: Project: ACE-IT
- The Impact of Paid Leave on School Functioning During COVID-19
- Growing Opportunities for COVID-19 Testing Programs in U.S. Schools
- Virtual Conversation: From Testing to Vaccines to Equity: Navigating the Remainder of the COVID-19 School Year
Achieving equitable health outcomes
- Informing Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 Health Equity Response
- Addressing the Unique Needs of Immigrant and Limited-English-Proficient Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Are Refugee Essential Workers at a Higher Risk of Contracting COVID-19?
Addressing lingering behavioral health effects
- Supporting the Mental Health of LGBTQ+ Youth Following COVID-19’s Impact
- Social Distancing to Virtual Learning: Breaking Down COVID-19’s Impact on Mental Health Across Youth Developmental Stages
- Virtual Conversation: COVID-19—A Catalyst for Integrating Youth Behavioral Health Care Across Settings
- Growing Rates of Eating Disorders Among Teens—Another COVID-19 Concern?
- Policy Review: Addressing System Needs for Child Behavioral Health in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic
Ensuring the safety of child care
Investigating the rising rates of sexually transmitted infections among youth amid the pandemic
- STIs Among Youth During COVID-19 May Be the Tip of the Iceberg
- How the COVID-19 Pandemic is Affecting Another Epidemic Among Teens: STDs
Preparing for the next pandemic
- Senate HELP Committee Request for Information: Preparing for the Next Pandemic
- A Precision Public Health Approach to Preventing the Next COVID-19 Surge: It’s Time to Talk about Surveillance
Next Steps
PolicyLab will continue to work on addressing the impact of the pandemic on the children and families we serve, particularly issues related to health equity, ranging from adolescent behavioral health and sexual health, birth outcomes, social safety net program enrollment and disparities in access to telemedicine services. Through this work, PolicyLab will leverage its research, expertise, and experience distilling information for and engaging with policy audiences to advocate for policies and practices that will build a stronger, more supportive infrastructure for child and family health in the future as we recover from the pandemic.
This project page was last updated in July 2021.
Archive: please see below for a few of PolicyLab’s older COVID-19-focused resources.
- Child Care is an Essential Service. What is Needed to Reopen Safely?
- Outcomes of a Rapid Adolescent Telehealth Scale-up During the COVID-19 Pandemic
- Paid Leave: Will COVID-19 be a Catalyst for This Essential Policy?
- Supporting Immigrant Communities and Those with Limited English Proficiency During the Pandemic: Stakeholder Perspectives from Pennsylvania
- What COVID-19 Reveals about the Value of Telemedicine for Children’s Mental Health
Suggested Citation
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, PolicyLab. Responding to COVID-19 [Online]. Available at: http://www.policylab.chop.edu. [Accessed: plug in date accessed here].