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Principal Investigator: Anna D. Johnson
Organization: GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Fiscal Year: 2024
Award: $643,467
Funding agency: National Institute of Mental Health
Project Summary
The COVID-19 pandemic poses a sustained threat to the wellbeing of all children, but particularly for low-
income, racially minoritized, and special needs subgroups. This unpredictable, complex, racialized crisis has
exposed millions of children to massive disruptions of their educational contexts when schools closed, with
growing accounts of associated learning loss, social isolation, and emotional distress. Scholars have mobilized
to study the pandemic, yet much of this emerging research draws on small, relatively homogeneous (mostly
white) samples, limiting applicability to the subgroups most affected by this pandemic and its multisystem
disruptions (e.g., Latinx [including ELL]; Black; children with special needs). Little of this new research contains
extensive, repeated measures of pre-COVID-19 child functioning. Nor does it capture the multisystem
culturally-embedded protective factors likely to influence short- and longer-term developmental recovery for the
current US child population. Thus, there is an urgent need for culturally-relevant, longitudinal research
spanning the period from before the pandemic and continuing, on diverse samples of children to inform current
and future pandemic preparation and response efforts. The proposed project fills this gap by capturing
children’s pre-k-1st grade pre-pandemic functioning and following them through - and well beyond - the period
of widespread quarantines and school closures, as they enter adolescence. Leveraging data from an existing,
ongoing, large, highly diverse sample of low-income students in Title I schools who have been followed since
they were preschoolers in 2016, the proposed study will (Aim 1a) determine the impacts of COVID-19
disruptions when schools were closed on children’s short-term outcomes in the years immediately following
school reopening (3rd-5th grade); (Aim 1b) investigate how short-term outcomes are exacerbated or mitigated
by individual differences in children’s pre-COVID-19 strengths and vulnerabilities; (Aim 2a) explore the longer-
term impacts of disruption on development by adding repeated measurement of children’s outcomes in the
longer term following school reopening, through 9th grade; and (2b) identify the most potent features of
children’s post-school-reopening family, school, and peer contexts – including culturally-embedded family
factors – that mitigate the longer-term impacts (through 9th grade) of COVID-19 disruption on recovery of
consequential early adolescent outcomes, including mental health. By determining effects of educational and
family-based disruptions during school closures, and family disruptions that continue after schools reopened,
on varying developmental trajectories, and identifying culturally-embedded protective factors, this project
moves well beyond identifying risk groups to specifying shared and unique aspects of children’s family, school,
and peer contexts that promote long-term resilience in a highly diverse sample. It thus holds tremendous
promise for advancing knowledge to improve public health and inform current and future disaster preparation,
relief, and recovery efforts tailored to children especially susceptible to negative outcomes.
Terms: <0-11 years old><12-20 years old><1st grade><2nd grade><3rd grade><5th grade><9th grade><Address><Adolescence><Adolescent><Adolescent Youth><Affect><Black><Black race><Buffers><COVID crisis><COVID epidemic><COVID pandemic><COVID-19><COVID-19 affected><COVID-19 consequence><COVID-19 crisis><COVID-19 effect><COVID-19 epidemic><COVID-19 era><COVID-19 global health crisis><COVID-19 global pandemic><COVID-19 health crisis><COVID-19 impact><COVID-19 impacted><COVID-19 pandemic><COVID-19 period><COVID-19 public health crisis><COVID-19 years><CV-19><Child><Child Development><Child Youth><Children (0-21)><Circulatory Collapse><Cognitive><Complex><Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019><Data><Development><Dimensions><Disasters><Education><Educational Measurement><Educational aspects><Emotional><Environment><Espanol><Event><Exclusion><Family><Family Process><Future><Generalized Growth><Goals><Growth><Home><Individual Differences><Infant and Child Development><Investigators><Knowledge><Latine><Latinx><Learning><Longitudinal Studies><Low income><Measurement><Measures><Mental Health><Mental Hygiene><Nursery Schools><Outcome><Personal Satisfaction><Population><Predisposition><Preparation><Process><Psychological Health><Public Health><Quarantine><Race><Races><Recovery><Research><Research Personnel><Researchers><Risk><Role><SARS-CoV-2 epidemic><SARS-CoV-2 global health crisis><SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic><SARS-CoV-2 pandemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 epidemic><SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic><Sampling><Schools><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 epidemic><Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome CoV 2 pandemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 epidemic><Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic><Shock><Social Functioning><Social isolation><Spanish><Special needs><Specific qualifier value><Specified><Students><Subgroup><Susceptibility><System><Tissue Growth><Youth><Youth 10-21><adolescence (12-20)><children of color><circulatory shock><cognitive recovery><coronavirus disease 2019><coronavirus disease 2019 consequence><coronavirus disease 2019 crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 effect><coronavirus disease 2019 epidemic><coronavirus disease 2019 global health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 global pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 health crisis><coronavirus disease 2019 impact><coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic><coronavirus disease 2019 public health crisis><coronavirus disease crisis><coronavirus disease epidemic><coronavirus disease pandemic><coronavirus disease-19><coronavirus disease-19 global pandemic><coronavirus disease-19 impact><coronavirus disease-19 pandemic><coronavirus infectious disease-19><current pandemic><design><designing><developmental><early adolescence><emotional distress><evidence base><experience><feeling distress><feeling upset><fifth grade><first grade><function socially><functioning social><future pandemic><high school freshman><homes><improved><isolation/quarantine><juvenile><juvenile human><kids><knowledge base><long-term study><longitudinal outcome studies><longterm study><lower income families><marginalized group><marginalized individual><marginalized people><marginalized population><next pandemic><ninth grade><ontogeny><pandemic><pandemic caused disruption><pandemic created disruption><pandemic disease><pandemic disruption><pandemic effect><pandemic impact><pandemic induced disruption><pandemic outcome><pandemic related disruption><pandemic repercussions><peer><pre-adolescent><pre-k><pre-kindergarten><pre-pandemic><preadolescence><preparations><preschool><present pandemic><preteen><protective factors><public health emergency><racial><racial background><racial minority><racial origin><resilience><resilient><response><restoration><school closing><school closure><school reopening><second grade><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global health crisis><severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 global pandemic><shocks><skills><social><social role><third grade><well-being><wellbeing><youngster><youth of color>