More Than 1.5 Million Children Globally Lost Caregivers Due to COVID-19 Pandemic

An estimated 1.562 million children worldwide lost a caregiver from March 2020 to April 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, according to astudy published this week inThe Lancet.“Studies like this play a crucial role in illuminating the COVID-19 pandemic’s long-lasting consequences for families and the future mental health and well-being of children across the globe,” said National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora D. Volkow, M.D., in anews release. NIDA helped fund the study.Susan Hillis, Ph.D., of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention COVID-19 Response Team and colleagues noted that orphanhood (defined as the death of one or both parents) can have severe consequences for children. “Because COVID-19 can lead to death within weeks, families have little time to prepare children for the trauma they experience when a parent or caregiver dies,” they continued.Hillis and colleagues used excess death and COVID-19 death data from 21 countries from March 1, 2020, to April 30, 2021. The countries accounted for 76% of global COVID-19 deaths. The deaths included those caused directly by the virus, as well as those caused indirectly by other causes, such as lockdowns or decreased access to health care. The authors also used fertility rates to calculate the average number of children that each adult would have during the study period, to estimate the number of children orphaned by these deaths. They extended the study to incorporate deaths of grandparents aged ...
Source: Psychiatr News - Category: Psychiatry Tags: caregivers children COVID-19 fathers grandparents mothers Nora Volkow orphans pandemic The Lancet trauma United States worldwide Source Type: research