Community Environmental Health Program, College of Pharmacy, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, NM 87106, USA.
Department of Biostatistics, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2023 Jan 5;20(2):1013. doi: 10.3390/ijerph20021013.
The financial hardships and social isolation experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic have been found to adversely affect children's developmental outcomes. While many studies thus far have focused on school-aged children and the pandemic-related impacts on their academic skills and behavior problems, relatively less is known about pandemic hardships and associations with children's development during their early years. Using a racially and economically diverse sample, we examined whether hardships experienced during the pandemic were associated with children's development with a particular focus on communication and socioemotional development.
Participants from eight cohorts of the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes program provided data on pandemic-related financial and social hardships as well as child developmental outcomes. Financial hardship was defined as at least one parent experiencing job loss or change, and social hardship was defined as families' quarantining from household members or extended family and friends. The development of children under 4 was assessed longitudinally, before and during the pandemic (N = 684), using the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ). The Generalized Estimating Equations, which accounted for within-child correlation, were used for analysis.
Families from minority backgrounds and low socioeconomic status disproportionately experienced pandemic-related hardships. Male children had higher odds of experiencing negative changes in communication and personal social skills from pre- to during-pandemic visits (ORs ranged between 2.24 and 3.03 in analysis with binary ASQ outcomes and ranged from -0.34-0.36 in analyses with ASQ z-scores, s = 0.000). Pandemic-related hardships in the social and financial areas did not explain within-individual changes in children's developmental outcomes.
Negative developmental changes from pre- to during-pandemic were found in boys, yet we did not find any associations between increased experience of pandemic-related hardships and children's development. E how pandemic hardships affect development using a larger sample size and with longer follow-up is warranted.
在 COVID-19 大流行期间经历的经济困难和社会孤立被发现会对儿童的发展结果产生不利影响。虽然迄今为止许多研究都集中在学龄儿童和大流行对他们学术技能和行为问题的影响上，但对于大流行期间的困难以及它们与儿童早年发展的关系知之甚少。本研究使用种族和经济多样化的样本，研究了大流行期间经历的困难是否与儿童的发展有关，特别是在沟通和社会情感发展方面。
环境对儿童健康结果影响计划的八个队列的参与者提供了与大流行相关的经济和社会困难以及儿童发展结果的数据。经济困难定义为至少有一位父母失业或工作变动，社会困难定义为家庭与家庭成员或大家庭和朋友隔离。在大流行之前和期间（N=684），使用年龄和阶段问卷（ASQ）对 4 岁以下儿童的发展进行了纵向评估。广义估计方程考虑了儿童内部相关性，用于分析。
少数族裔背景和社会经济地位较低的家庭不成比例地经历了与大流行相关的困难。与男性儿童相比，在大流行期间，沟通和个人社会技能出现负面变化的可能性更高（使用二元 ASQ 结果进行分析时，OR 范围在 2.24 到 3.03 之间，在使用 ASQ z 分数进行分析时，OR 范围在-0.34 到-0.36 之间，s=0.000）。社会和经济领域的大流行相关困难并不能解释儿童发展结果的个体内变化。
在大流行期间，发现男孩的发育出现了从前期到后期的负面变化，但我们没有发现增加经历大流行相关困难与儿童发育之间的任何关联。需要使用更大的样本量和更长的随访时间来研究大流行困难如何影响发展。
Zotero 插件