Kindergesundheit in der COVID-19-Pandemie: Ergebnisse aus den Schuleingangsuntersuchungen und einer Elternbefragung in der Region Hannover

Bantel, Susanne; Buitkamp, Martin; Wünsch, Andrea

doi:10.1007/s00103-021-03446-2

Cited by 23 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 28 publications

(34 reference statements)

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“…This is in line with previous well-established findings indicating that both a family's SEP and neighbourhood environment are associated with child overweight [20][21][22]. Our results regarding how the pandemic impacted children's HAD are in line with the study of Jenssen et al [14] showing that the increase in overweight was more pronounced in children with lower family income; and correspond to the study of Bantel [5] documenting a greater increase in children with low parental education. However, we did not observe inequalities according to migration background that Jenssen et al [14] found with regard to Hispanic and Black patients vs. White patients.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Language Our results correspond to the study of Bantel [5] where the increase in language difficulties was mainly observed in pre-schoolers with non-German origin. This effect can mainly be attributed to the closure of kindergartens.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…Therefore, to alleviate the sample selection bias, we restricted our sample to the first 800 examinations in each wave corresponding to Bredahl [6]. We chose a different approach than Bantel et al [5] since we believe that cutting the sample size by the date of examination instead of weighting leads to a more homogeneous sample. However, an important consequence of this procedure is that our results apply mainly to the group of vulnerable children and cannot be generalised to the total sample of pre-school children.…”

Section: Strengths and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The COVID-19 pandemic with its lockdowns and closures of kindergartens, schools and leisure facilities has influenced child health and development (HAD) in many ways -as has meanwhile been shown by individual studies and reviews: mental disorders have increased [1]; motor skills have been inhibited and overall physical fitness has worsened [2]; children have gained weight [3,4]; language development has worsened [5,6]. Social inequalities in child HAD are a common pattern [7,8], and it has been postulated that children from vulnerable backgrounds will be most affected by the pandemic.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…There are some exceptions e.g. survey data showed that vulnerable children were at increased risk of mental health impairments [11,12] and of decreasing motor performance [13]; hospital patient data showed that social disparities in overweight and obesity have increased since the onset of the pandemic [14]; data of school enrolment examinations showed that children with low parental education and those with a migration background have a higher increase in overweight and language problems than their reference groups [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Child health and development in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: are there social inequalities?

Weyers

Rigó

2023

Eur J Pediatr

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COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and closures have influenced all children’s health and development (HAD). We aimed to examine whether this differs by social circumstances. We hypothesised that socially disadvantaged children experienced more pronounced deterioration in their HAD compared with better-off children. In our trend study, we included five cohorts of school enrolment medical screening (school entrance 2018–2022) in the city of Dusseldorf, Germany. To compensate for selection bias due to the limited number of examinations in pandemic months, we chose the first 800 examinations of each cohort. We computed predicted prevalences of overweight, coordination and language problems as indicators of HAD. Neighbourhood deprivation, single-parent families and non-German nationality were used as indicators of social disadvantage. All groups of children experienced a deterioration in their HAD. Its magnitude is comparable between children with different social circumstances. For instance, between 2018 and 2021, prevalence of overweight increased from 19.2 to 24.2% in children from deprived neighbourhoods, and from 8.1 to 16.5% in children from well-off neighbourhoods. Prevalence of language problems (prepositions) increased from 49.9 to 72.1% among non-German children, and from 14.4 to 39.1% among German children. Conclusion: Results only partly confirmed our hypothesis. However, since the pre-pandemic prevalences of HAD problems among disadvantaged children were already higher, further deterioration — regardless of its magnitude — has led to their particularly poor situation. For those children, overweight and language development should be priorities of prevention. Generally, important settings for child HAD such as kindergartens or leisure facilities should remain open in future pandemics. What is known:• The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on general child health and development.• Before the pandemic, social inequalities in child health and development were a common phenomenon. What is new:• Children in all social groups experienced a deterioration in their health and development over the course of the pandemic.• Over the course of the pandemic, children from deprived neighbourhoods have demonstrated a particularly high prevalence of overweight. Language problems are particularly prevalent among non-German children.

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