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Impacts of COVID-19 related school closures on mental health and sleep among parents and young children of color

Thu, April 8, 10:15 to 11:15am EDT (10:15 to 11:15am EDT), Virtual

Abstract

COVID-19 and resulting strategies to mitigate its transmission have exacerbated racial disparities in health by disproportionately causing drastic changes in the lives of low-income families of color (Douglas, Katikireddi, Taulbut, McKee, & McCartney, 2020; Lee, 2020). School closures disrupted multiple aspects of families’ lives, forcing parents to provide or find child care, arrange access to food previously provided at schools, and manage virtual learning requirements (Douglas et al., 2020; Prime, Wade, & Browne, 2020). In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, emerging work suggests that levels of mental health and sleep problems in children and adults are elevated (Gualano, Lo Moro, Voglino, Bert, & Siliquini, 2020; Jiao et al., 2020; Rajkumar, 2020), but these studies have largely relied on correlational designs and none have focused on the impact of school closures specifically. Sudden school closure is especially challenging for parents of young children given that young children need constant adult supervision and assistance with virtual learning platforms and as young children learn in the context of relationships. Thus, the current study aims to advance understanding of the experiences of families of young children of color during the pandemic by utilizing a natural experiment design to test the impact of COVID-19 related school closures on child and parent mental health and sleep among families of color living in historically disinvested neighborhoods.

The current study leverages a natural experiment created by COVID-19 responsive school closures for all NYC pre-K programs in the middle of baseline data collection (time 1). Phone surveys were conducted with 285 parents of pre-K students. In NYC, school closure occurred on March 13, 2020; 202 families had completed the survey prior to March 13, and 83 families completed the survey after March 13, using identical protocols and procedures.

Surveys were completed primarily by mothers (91%); 36% were completed in Spanish and 64% in English. Parents reported their race/ethnicity as 66% Latino, 22% Non-Latino Black, 5% Non-Latino White and 2% Non-Latino Asian. One-quarter of parents reported less than a high school degree. Primary analysis includes comparisons of parent mental health and sleep as well as child externalization, internalization and sleep between families who completed surveys pre and post school closures.

Parent mental health problems were on average 0.28 points higher post school closure compared to pre closure, p = 0.0083. Parent sleep disturbance was 1.4 points higher post closure compared to pre closure, but the difference was not significant p = 0.306. Child internalizing was 1.0 point higher post school closure, however not significant. There were no differences for either subdomain or for child sleep disturbance.
Additional planned analysis include moderation analyses to examine whether impacts differ by child gender, race, and parent language preference. Consistent with the Social Determinants of Health framework, we will discuss how COVID-19 and related school closures highlighted and exacerbated health disparities among families of color. We will apply a racial equity lens in postulating the structures that create mental health burden and discuss implications for educational policy and practice.

Authors