Responding to COVID-19
Statement of Problem
The cycles of significant COVID-19 community transmission over the past couple of years have presented extreme challenges to the health and well-being of children and families throughout the country. These obstacles include disruptions to education and access to health services, social isolation, experiences of loss, and much more.
While it’s exciting that children ages 5 and older can receive the COVID-19 vaccine, families with young children who receive early care and education continue to face unique challenges, and K-12 schools are still in need of practical guidance focused on navigating the lingering health and social impacts associated with the virus.
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 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
- Forecasting COVID-19 Transmission Across Time in U.S. Counties
- The Relationship Between State COVID-19 Vaccination Coverage and Adult Hospital Census in 200 Words
- The Effectiveness of Government Masking Mandates On COVID-19 County-level Case Incidence Across the United States, 2020
- How Effective are Mask Mandates at Stopping the Spread of COVID-19?
Keeping schools safely open
- Guidance for In-person Education in K-12 Educational Settings
- Guidance on Managing COVID-19 and Other Seasonal Viruses for Early Care and Education Settings and Families of Children Under 5 Years Old
- Assisting Childhood Education through Increased Testing: Project: ACE-IT
- SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Public School District Employees Following a District-Wide Vaccination Program — Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania, March 21–April 23, 2021
Achieving equitable health outcomes
- Informing Pennsylvania’s COVID-19 Health Equity Response
- Child Abuse Imaging and Findings in the Time of COVID-19
- The Future of Virtual Service Delivery: Lessons Learned from Research and Programmatic Experience
- Disparities in SARS-CoV-2 Positivity Among Pregnant Patients with Limited English Proficiency
- Modernizing WIC Enrollment to Improve Access to Healthy Food for Children and Families
- Addressing the Unique Needs of Immigrant and Limited-English-Proficient Communities During the COVID-19 Pandemic
Addressing lingering behavioral health effects
- In Their Own Words: Child and Adolescent Perceptions of Caregiver Stress in Early COVID-19 Pandemic
- Educators and Caregivers Need Better Tools to Support Youth with Eating Disorders
- Exploring Innovative Research & Partnerships to Support School-based Mental Health Services
- Addressing the Global Crisis of Child and Adolescent Mental Health
- 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
Ensuring the successful future of child care
- The Child Care Crisis: Partnering with Health Care to Build a Stronger System
- Policy Considerations to Ensure Accessible and Quality Child Care
Investigating the rising rates of sexually transmitted infections among youth amid the pandemic
- Reducing STIs Through Equitable Chlamydia Screenings in Pediatric Settings
- How the COVID-19 Pandemic is Affecting Another Epidemic Among Teens: STDs
Understanding the acceptability and feasibility of telehealth services
- Acceptability of Telehealth for Gender-affirming Care in Transgender and Gender Diverse Youth and Their Caregivers
- Acceptability, Feasibility and Quality of Telehealth for Adolescent Health Care Delivery During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional Study of Patient and Family Experiences
- Telehealth’s Impact on Teen Care During COVID-19 in 200 Words
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 April 2022.
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].