Journal article
COVID-19-associated orphanhood and caregiver death in the United States
- Abstract:
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Background: Most COVID-19 deaths occur among adults, not children, and attention has focused on mitigating COVID-19 burden among adults. However, a tragic consequence of adult deaths is that high numbers of children might lose their parents and caregivers to COVID-19-associated deaths.
Methods: We quantified COVID-19-associated caregiver loss and orphanhood in the US and for each state using fertility and excess and COVID-19 mortality data. We assessed burden and rates of COVID-19-associated orphanhood and deaths of custodial and co-residing grandparents, overall and by race/ethnicity. We further examined variations in COVID-19-associated orphanhood by race/ethnicity for each state.
Results: We found that from April 1, 2020 through June 30, 2021, over 140,000 children in the US experienced the death of a parent or grandparent caregiver. The risk of such loss was 1.1 to 4.5 times higher among children of racial and ethnic minorities, compared to Non-Hispanic White children. The highest burden of COVID-19-associated death of parents and caregivers occurred in Southern border states for Hispanic children, Southeastern states for Black children, and in states with tribal areas for American Indian/Alaska Native populations.
Conclusions: We found substantial disparities in distributions of COVID-19-associated death of parents and caregivers across racial and ethnic groups. Children losing caregivers to COVID-19 need care and safe, stable, and nurturing families with economic support, quality childcare and evidence-based parenting support programs. There is an urgent need to mount an evidence-based comprehensive response focused on those children at greatest risk, in the states most affected.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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(Preview, Version of record, 1.7MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1542/peds.2021-053760
Authors
- Publisher:
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- Journal:
- Pediatrics More from this journal
- Volume:
- 148
- Issue:
- 6
- Article number:
- e2021053760
- Publication date:
- 2021-12-01
- Acceptance date:
- 2021-09-13
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1098-4275
- ISSN:
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0031-4005
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1194081
- Local pid:
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pubs:1194081
- Deposit date:
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2021-09-13
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- American Academy of Pediatrics
- Copyright date:
- 2021
- Rights statement:
- © 2021 by the American Academy of Pediatrics. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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