Brackx F, De Smedt B, Molenberghs G. A dashboard for the evaluation of the effect of school closures on wellbeing of children and parents.
Arch Public Health 2023;
81:178. [PMID:
37789384 PMCID:
PMC10548715 DOI:
10.1186/s13690-023-01114-2]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/18/2022] [Accepted: 05/18/2023] [Indexed: 10/05/2023] Open
Abstract
BACKGROUND
We present a dashboard for the evaluation of the impact of school closures on children and parents during the first wave of the COVID pandemic in 2020 on the various components of wellbeing.
METHODS
Starting from an explorative literature search by a team of experts from diverse fields (e.g., epidemiology, virology, psychology, education, sociology), we developed a dashboard that allows for the quick evaluation of the general effect of school closures on various indicators of well-being in different groups and for the quality of the available research, at a time where a crisis is ongoing.
RESULTS
It is concluded that there is evidence that the school closures reduced the transmission of COVID in the first wave in springtime 2020. Nevertheless, a multitude of studies show that the school closures also had a negative impact on different components of wellbeing such as academic achievement, time spent on learning and mental health. Furthermore, the school closures affected not only the children and adolescents, but also the parents that were forced to provide more childcare and help with schoolwork. Longitudinal studies on large representative samples with repeated assessments of wellbeing are necessary to understand the long-term effects of the school closures.
CONCLUSIONS
The dashboard provides a first visual overview of the effects of school closures on wellbeing, and can serve as the basis for a future more systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of school closures on wellbeing. It can be considered as a paradigm for rapid obtention of scientific evidence, during a quickly unfolding crisis, also in view of underpinning policy advice.
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