My mom lost her business…we were trying to maintain everything but the bills just kept piling up. Food prices went up, rent, everything went up.…We didn’t know if we were gonna get food the next day, if we were even going to have our place.…It got to the point where I wasn’t able to sleep properly anymore or eat properly anymore, and I did gain a lot of anxiety and depression.
This is just one of many stories from children and youth who experienced the worst pandemic in US history. Although the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency is set to end on May 11, 2023, it is clear it has, and will continue to have, deleterious effects on the children and youth who experienced the pandemic during sensitive periods of their development. [JAMA Network]
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) released a consensus report that reviews the impact of COVID-19 on the health and well-being of children and families thus far, and what needs to be done to attenuate longer-term negative effects.1
The NASEM committee for this report was intentionally designed to address areas most relevant to children and families (education, social and emotional development, physical and mental health, economic well-being), and to focus on the groups who bore the brunt of the pandemic: those from racial and ethnic minoritized groups and low-income families.
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