Child health and development in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: are there social inequalities?

Abstract

COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns and closures have influenced all children’s health and development (HAD). We aimed to examine whether this differs by social circumstances. We hypothesised that socially disadvantaged children experienced more pronounced deterioration in their HAD compared with better-off children. In our trend study, we included five cohorts of school enrolment medical screening (school entrance 2018–2022) in the city of Dusseldorf, Germany. To compensate for selection bias due to the limited number of examinations in pandemic months, we chose the first 800 examinations of each cohort. We computed predicted prevalences of overweight, coordination and language problems as indicators of HAD. Neighbourhood deprivation, single-parent families and non-German nationality were used as indicators of social disadvantage. All groups of children experienced a deterioration in their HAD. Its magnitude is comparable between children with different social circumstances. For instance, between 2018 and 2021, prevalence of overweight increased from 19.2 to 24.2% in children from deprived neighbourhoods, and from 8.1 to 16.5% in children from well-off neighbourhoods. Prevalence of language problems (prepositions) increased from 49.9 to 72.1% among non-German children, and from 14.4 to 39.1% among German children. Conclusion: Results only partly confirmed our hypothesis. However, since the pre-pandemic prevalences of HAD problems among disadvantaged children were already higher, further deterioration — regardless of its magnitude — has led to their particularly poor situation. For those children, overweight and language development should be priorities of prevention. Generally, important settings for child HAD such as kindergartens or leisure facilities should remain open in future pandemics.What is known:• The COVID-19 pandemic has had a negative impact on general child health and development.• Before the pandemic, social inequalities in child health and development were a common phenomenon.What is new:• Children in all social groups experienced a deterioration in their health and development over the course of the pandemic.• Over the course of the pandemic, children from deprived neighbourhoods have demonstrated a particularly high prevalence of overweight. Language problems are particularly prevalent among non-German children.