Addressing the Long-Term Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children and Families (2023) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
2 Societal and Developmental Contexts of the Pandemic
2 Societal and Developmental Contexts of the Pandemic
Pages 41-68
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 41... ...
It came in the context of existing patterns of inequities and marginalization, known as structural racism, which intensified the pandemic's impact for low-income and racially and ethnically minoritized children and their families. Structural racism refers to a system in which historical and contemporary public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in different, often reinforcing ways, to maintain or compound racial inequalities (the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine [the National Academies]
|
From page 42... ...
The COVID-19 pandemic landed in this inequitable environment, compounding numerous preexisting inequities in social, economic, education, and health access and outcomes. In addition, the pandemic occurred at the time of and intersected with other major social events, including the widespread protests for racial justice in 2020; a rise in opioid addictions and deaths; and increasing polarization, politicization, and misinformation in public discourse: see Figure 2-1.
|
From page 43... ...
FIGURE 2-1 Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic and other major social events. NOTES: CARES Act, Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act; CDC, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; WHO, World Health Organization.
|
From page 44... ...
. DEVELOPMENTAL CONTEXT To fully appreciate the potential effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, it is important to recognize the developmental stages across the life course and
|
From page 45... ...
The diagram's nested circles illustrate the complex sociocultural environment that shapes development at the individual level. Individual social and biological mechanisms and culture operate and interact within and across the three levels.
|
From page 46... ...
The next level, the third circle from the outermost ring, represents the factors that most directly and proximally shape children's daily experiences, routine patterns, and access to resources: family cohesion, social connections, and caregiver well-being. Developmental risk and protective factors can be transferred intergenerationally, which makes parents and other family and community caregivers a central focus of understanding the effects of the pandemic on children and their families.1 Parental well-being is a critical determinant of children's health and developmental outcomes: what happens to parents before, during, and after pregnancy has major implications for their children (Center on the Developing Child, 2009; Goodman & Garber, 2017; the National Academies, 2019)
|
From page 47... ...
Underscoring the idea noted above that risk and protective factors can be transferred intergenerationally and that parents and other family and community caregivers are central to understanding the effects of the pandemic on children and their families, a key tenet of the life-course perspective includes the notion of linked lives. Linked lives refers to the idea that, across generations and within important relationships, developmental trajectories intersect to influence outcomes (e.g., Elder et al., 2003)
|
From page 48... ...
48 FIGURE 2-3 A life-course view of COVID-19 developmental effects. NOTE: See Figure 2-1 (above)
|
From page 49... ...
Just as the effects of the pandemic need to be understood with the time, history, and ecological lenses of a life-course perspective, so, too, do the relevant interventions and strategies intended to mitigate those effects need to be designed with that understanding. Applying the life-course perspective to the task of capturing and understanding the impacts of the pandemic suggests that the most effective interventions are likely to be those that focus on relevant developmental tasks, stretch key developmental windows, and are ecologically embedded and relevant to individual and group experiences over time (the National Academies, 2019)
|
From page 50... ...
The signature of the event includes objective features regarding the type and magnitude of the event, including a compilation of the dangers; the extent of destruction, morbidity, and mortality; the nature and extent of immediate psychological consequences; the impact on infrastructure, resource loss, and economic disruption; and the impact on the workforce, community leadership, family structure and functioning, and developmental opportunities or achievements. These factors may be more 3See National Child Traumatic Stress Network: https://www.nctsn.org/resources/12-core concepts-concepts-understanding-traumatic-stress-responses-children-and-families 4 We note that the research summarized here necessarily covers only what is available and is consequently geographically bounded and limited to certain populations.
|
From page 51... ...
Long-term prospective child mental health disaster studies of children exposed to the catastrophic 1988 Spitak earthquake in Armenia have indicated that these consequences can extend for decades, and they include adverse physical health and developmental outcomes (Goenjian et al., 2021; Pynoos, 2022)
|
From page 52... ...
Based on studies of war, it is known that exposure to injury of close family members predicts child developmental problems, and since racial and economic disparities predict exposure to injury of close family members, it is highly likely that the long-term effects on development would be more pronounced among children in racially and minoritized communities. Children have also had experiences of intercurrent danger, trauma, and loss, including child abuse, witnessing of interpersonal violence, racism, bullying, and deaths of family members from other causes (Krause et al., 2022; Mpofu et al., 2022)
|
From page 53... ...
The existing disaster literature focuses on first responders who are emergency care personnel, but literature related to the pandemic expands that focus to both emergency care personnel and health care personnel (e.g., Wu et al., 2009)
|
From page 54... ...
.7 Perhaps the most pronounced dose-of-exposure disparities from the pandemic are among racially and ethnically minoritized children. According to the same study, racially and ethnically minoritized children account for 65 percent of those who have lost a primary caregiver because of COVID-19, with American Indian and Alaska Native children 4.5 times as likely as White children to have lost a parent or caregiver, Black children 2.4 times as likely, and Hispanic children almost two times as likely (Hillis et al., 2021)
|
From page 55... ...
ADVERSITIES AND RESILIENCE Recent research documents that some communities and individuals have faced more adversities because of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic than others. For example, in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's nationally representative Adolescent Behaviors and Experiences Survey (January–June 2021)
|
From page 56... ...
, have included this broader trauma and loss exposure profiling in mental health recovery efforts. It will be important to explore similar issues about the long-term interactive consequence of prior trauma and loss exposure to pandemic exposure in post-COVID-19 mental health programming, including mental health screening, for children.
|
From page 57... ...
, and disturb developmental trajectories. Ongoing life disruptions carry additional risks for child psychopathology (Comer et al., 2010)
|
From page 58... ...
. Historical trauma and stress have been particularly salient for Native American communities that have long suffered a disproportionate burden of disease morbidity and mortality (Walls & Whitbeck, 2011; Hill et al.,
|
From page 59... ...
, despite the fact that Native Americans have had one of the highest shares of vaccination rates in the country (Carroll et al., 2021; Crepelle, 2021; Silberner, 2021)
|
From page 60... ...
demonstrated how caregiving practices in African American families can buffer children from the negative consequences of discrimination and racism, with lasting effects observed over the life course. Children who experienced discrimination during middle childhood learned strategies to manage similar situations as they transitioned into adolescence.
|
From page 61... ...
. Social distance brings Native Americans together amid a difficult time.
|
From page 62... ...
. Understand ing development of African American boys and young men: Moving from risks to positive youth development. American Psychologist, 73(6)
|
From page 63... ...
. Psychopathology among New York City public school children 6 months after September 11.
|
From page 64... ...
. Children's predisaster func tioning as a predictor of posttraumatic stress following Hurricane Andrew.
|
From page 65... ...
. Excavating new constructs for family stress theories in the context of everyday life experi ences of Black American families.
|
From page 66... ...
. COVID-19 related posttraumatic stress disorder in children and adolescents in Saudi Arabia.
|
From page 67... ...
. Covid-19: How Native Americans led the way in the US vaccination effort.
|
From page 68... ...
. Gene expression patterns asso ciated with posttraumatic stress disorder following exposure to the World Trade Center attacks.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.