Impact of COVID-19 on Families with Children: Examining Sociodemographic Differences.
Tre D Gissandaner, Crystal S Lim, Dustin E Sarver and 4 others
PMID 36729525WHAT IT FOUND
Lower household income and Black caregiver status were linked to more worry, lost job income, and trouble getting resources.
Rurality was not linked to these reports, and family psychological health was not linked to income, race, or rurality when family factors were considered.
Key findings
01Caregivers with lower household income were more likely to strongly agree that they worried about catching COVID-19, that the family lost job income, and that obtaining resources was hard.
02Black caregivers were more likely than White caregivers to strongly agree that they worried about catching COVID-19, that the family lost job income, and that obtaining resources was hard.
03Rurality was not related to worry, lost job income, or difficulty obtaining resources, and income, race, and rurality were not related to family psychological health in the adjusted model.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The survey completion rate was 36%, so caregivers who did not respond may have differed from those who did. The sample was limited to Mississippi, so results may not apply to other states. Analyses were limited to Black and White caregivers because other race and ethnicity groups were too small. The pandemic impact items were self-reported by caregivers and adapted from an existing questionnaire, not clinical assessments. Data were collected before vaccines became widely available, so worry about catching COVID-19 may have changed after the study period. The estimate for widowed caregivers had a very wide confidence interval, from 1.95 to 58.25, so it should be read cautiously.
Declared interests
The authors declared no conflicts of interest. The paper’s metadata lists NIH extramural research support.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that rural families were more affected than urban families. Rurality was not related to worry, lost job income, trouble obtaining resources, or family psychological health in this survey.