COVID-19: Families, children aged 0-4 and pregnant women: vulnerabilities, resources and recovery in Tower Hamlets

当前新冠肺炎疫情的不利直接和间接影响将不成比例地落在贫困背景的个人和家庭身上，即那些面临工作和居住在更高密度住房的公众。塔哈姆莱斯，这项研究的地点，由于其先前存在的严重的收入和健康不平等，已经是一个高风险的市中心地区，位于最富有的全球城市之一。该项目将重点关注封锁的影响及其对该行政区幼儿的影响，由于2020年3月23日引入的与减缓新冠肺炎传播速度相关的前所未有的流动限制，这些儿童可能会经历新的健康和教育不平等。塔哈姆莱特的人口结构高度多样化，居民来自不同的族裔和社会和经济背景，这为确定家庭如何利用其人际、经济和社会资源来管理与被封锁和被封锁后恢复生活相关的风险提供了机会。我们会与行政区公共卫生及儿童服务小组紧密合作，对2000个有0-4岁子女的夫妇和单亲家庭及孕妇进行重复调查；由约60名家庭成员组成的纵向定性小组，包括父亲及更广泛的亲属；以及研究不断转变的家庭支援服务，以及紧急社区资源，例如互助和朋辈网络。我们感兴趣的是家庭的文化和人际资产及其脆弱性：出现了哪些管理家庭和社区生活的新形式，这些新方法如何帮助幼儿？我们将包括两个被定义为弱势群体的群体：孕妇和受到保护的儿童。所选择的调查工具是由出生在布拉德福德(BIB)的同步队列研究和国际休假政策和研究网络运行的，提供强有力的比较。调查结果将有助于指导该市在大流行恢复阶段部署稀缺资源，并将与所有市中心地区相关。

Adverse direct and indirect impacts of the current COVID-19 pandemic will disproportionately fall on individuals and families from poorer backgrounds, those in public facing jobs and living in higher density housing. Tower Hamlets, the site of this study, with its pre-existing stark income and health inequalities is already a high-risk inner city area, placed in one of the richest global cities. This project will focus on the impacts of the lockdown, and its aftermath for the borough's young children, who are likely to experience new health and educational inequalities as a result of the unprecedented restrictions on mobility associated with slowing the spread of COVID-19 introduced on 23 March 2020. Tower Hamlets has a highly diverse population profile, with residents from a wide range of ethnicities and social and economic backgrounds, which offers an opportunity to identify how families deploy their interpersonal, economic and social resources to manage risks associated with living in lockdown and in recovery from lockdown. In close partnership with the borough Public Health and children's services team, we will run a repeat survey of 2000 couple and single parent families with children aged 0-4, and pregnant women; a longitudinal qualitative panel with approximately 60 household members including fathers and wider kin; and examine changing family support services, and emergent community resources such as mutual aid and peer networks. We are interested in families' cultural and inter-personal assets as well as their vulnerabilities: what new forms of managing family and community life have emerged and how are these novel methods helping young children? We will include two groups defined as vulnerable; pregnant women and shielded children. The survey tools chosen are those being run by the concurrent Born in Bradford (BiB) cohort study and by the International Network on Leave Policies and Research offering robust comparisons. Findings will help guide the borough's deployment of scarce resources in the recovery phase of the pandemic and will have relevance to all inner-city areas.