According to a study published Monday in the JAMA Pediatrics Journal of the American Medical Association, an estimated 37,300 to 43,000 American children have experienced at least one parent in the past year as a result of COVID-19.
A closer examination of the data found that the burden, which the authors of the study acknowledge is likely to “get heavier” amid the ongoing pandemic, ended up disproportionately on black children.
Black children make up only 14 percent of those under 18 in the U.S., but the study estimates they are responsible for 20 percent of the children who lost a parent to the coronavirus.
The authors said they were ‘able to follow parental deaths as the pandemic developed’ by estimating the expected number of affected children for each COVID-19 death.
‘We used kinship networks of white and black individuals in the US, estimated using demographic microsimulation, to calculate the loss multiplier. After that, we used the multiplier to estimate the extent of parenting in different death scenarios, ‘they wrote.
According to the authors, the estimates are based on demographic modeling and do not include the deaths of non-parental caregivers. They added that the study also relies on “identified, publicly available data” and is not considered an investigation as human subjects. ‘
Their research model, they write, ‘suggests that each COVID-19 death left 0.078 children between the ages of 0 and 17 left behind’, which they say is an increase of 17.5 per cent to 20.2 per cent ‘from parental absence is, absent from COVID-19 ‘.
The authors state that the estimated number of children who have lost a parent to the coronavirus is ‘staggering’ and said that a comprehensive national reform is needed to address the health, educational and economic outcomes affecting children. ‘
“Sudden parental deaths, such as those that occur as a result of COVID-19, can be especially traumatic for children and leave families ill-prepared to investigate the consequences,” they write.
“In addition, COVID-19 losses occur in a time of social isolation, institutional tension, and economic hardship, which can potentially leave disadvantaged children without the support they need,” they added.
According to Johns Hopkins University data, the U.S. has seen nearly 31 million confirmed cases of the coronavirus and more than 555,000 deaths since the pandemic began.