Amplification of Racial and Social Inequalities in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Impacts on Child Academic and Psychological Outcomes

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ABSTRACT Children are inherently shaped by the environment in which the live, learn, and play. This proposal to study the impact of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) virus outbreak on children’s development brings together a multidisciplinary team of investigators across the country from 6 ECHO Awards, representing 5 cohorts of ~2500 middle childhood and adolescent youth and the Person-Reported Outcome (PRO) Core). The proposed research develops and tests a novel conceptual model that casts family and community sociodemographic risk as important factors that shape COVID-19 related school, family, and child hardships and resources that influence child positive health. We propose that school resources (e.g., type and quality of distance learning), family hardships (e.g., financial strain and technology access), and child emotional support (e.g., connections to peers and family support) combine to predict children's positive health as measured by academic competence and psychological well- being. This ECHO proposal combines both variable-centered and person-centered methodological approaches to generate critical, time-sensitive knowledge on modifiable and actionable factors that can effectively mitigate the impact of COVID-19 psychosocial hardships on child positive health development. As school districts, communities, and states begin planning for the next stages of economic opening and return from school closures in the fall, it is imperative to know which children are most vulnerable and at-risk of being left behind; how school policies and teaching approaches can be best optimized; and what social and emotional supports need to be in place in order for families and communities to “build back better.”