Impact of COVID-19 on the lives of vulnerable young people in New Delhi, India: a mixed method study (original) (raw)
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Aim: The following paper attempts to trace the impact of Covid-19 on the younger generation, mostly from economically underprivileged sections, by focusing on specific themes such as health, education, vulnerability to abuse, and violence. The paper tries to address how the pandemic has affected various dimensions of the lives of these younger generation-children and adolescents, alongside tracing the measures taken by the government in the fight against the virus. Methods: We curated the information based on credible data as published in leading news media, PMC published peerreviewed materials Conclusions: The paper concludes with recommendations that a coherent government policy and the active participation of NGOs are needed to address the problem. The children's mental health needs to be dealt with utmost care at home, which will pave the way towards a better future for the younger generation during and after the pandemic.
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This article summarizes and analyses the available data regarding the impact of Covid 19 on the care and well-being of children (5-9 years old) and adolescents (10-19 years old) in India. The Study used ' Snowball retrieval strategy 'The authors identified peer-reviewed studies, reports, and government articles relevant to the research question published between January 2020 and April 2021.The study finds that children and adolescents are highly vulnerable to the pandemic and also the effects are diverse and require immediate attention.The evaluation highlights the disproportionately more vulnerability of younger children and teenage girls within in the regions of education, home violence, child marriage, home workload, and mental health. The study proposes a Psychosocial Response Model for Pandemic Management (PRP Model) in unique connection with youngsters and adolescent's population in the country.
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Since the origin of COVID-19, everyone is getting accustomed to the new rules and regulations, travel restrictions and new lifestyle. Constant changes in the government advisories and the COVID-19 guidelines poses a real challenge for children to adapt to causing stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. Therefore, it is imperative to raise awareness about the challenges that Indian children are dealing with to help them better cope with this stressful and frantic time. The focus of this review is on various child-related problems that the Indian government is trying to tackle such as stress, depression, malnutrition, school closures, digital divide, child labor, child trafficking in context of mental health issues caused by them during COVID-19. Highlights: The reader will come to appreciate that: • Digital-divide caused by shifting offline learning to online mode. • Strategies implemented by Indian government to combat malnutrition • Effect of COVID-19 lockdown on children suffering from mental disorders • Child labor and trafficking and the strategies that aim to decrease child labor during the pandemic • Educating the children appropriately regarding COVID protocols
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The article highlights the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on street children in India. Children living on the streets during lockdown are severely affected by poor access to food and water, lack of employment, increased likelihood of mistreatment, and a reduction in support services that could help them to change their situation. The pandemic also increases violence and early marriages, which will effectively prevent boys and girls from continuing their remedial programs.
The outbreak of pandemic COVID19 has challenged the existing system of functioning across the world and made us realize that change coined as “new normal” is inevitable to smoothen our lives. While imposition of lock down is a necessary step to curb the spread of the COVID19 infection and to lessen the burden on the existing health infrastructure, this has substantial adverse socioeconomic effect on India and rest of the world. Child exploitation in the form of frequent incidents of child marriages and child labour are some significant yet less studied external effects of epidemic or pandemic. Using latest, relevant reports and articles by national and international agencies, this paper highlights the adverse effect of pandemic COVID19 on vulnerable children in the form of child labour and child marriages; its associated socioeconomic consequences for the years to come, recent government policies to combat such social evils followed by effective suggestions. Furthermore, this article draws an analogy between the incidence of increasing school drop-outs and exploitation of children during and post Ebola pandemic in African countries and the increasing similar situation of India during the COVID19 pandemic and the likelihood of missing children from schools in post-lockdown years.
Understanding the impact of COVID-19 on adolescents in India
2020
Background: It has been six months since the first case of COVID-19 was reported in India. Since then, the focus has been on finding a cure to the disease. Largely neglected is the psychological impact of the pandemic on the adolescent population in the country. Methods: A hybrid combination of interviews and standardised questionnaires was used for data collection. The questionnaires were sent through an anonymous link on a social media platform to collect responses from July 4-8. The Impact of Events scale-Revised (IES-R) and Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support were used to assess the psychological impact and perceived social support. Results: Approximately, every four in five respondents had a significant psychological impact (IES score>24). Higher psychological impact was significantly associated with females, lower perceived social support, decreased sleep quality and a greater frequency of watching pandemic related news. Increased physical activity and time s...
COVID 19 Risks and Vulnerabilities of Street Connected Children: A Qualitative Study in Bangladesh
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The outbreak of COVID-19 exacerbated the plight of street-connected children. This qualitative study was conducted to elucidate child welfare service providers’ (CWSPs) experiences regarding the massive impact of COVID-19 on street-connected children in Dhaka city of Bangladesh. Ten CWSPs with direct experience of serving street-connected children during the pandemic were recruited purposively. Findings unveil that government administrative actions taken through lockdowns and restrictions disrupted the lives and livelihood of street-connected children. The pandemic situation caused job losses, restricted children’s opportunities to earn, and intensified their suffering from hunger, homelessness, and physical and sexual abuse. The children were displaced and detached from their peer network. They were deprived of education, healthcare, social services, and treatment facilities. Despite the risks of COVID-19 and movement restrictions, CWSPs came forward to serve the children with food aid and emergency services in collaboration with a few community-based voluntary organizations. However, the assistance was insufficient to address children’s needs and problems. Findings suggest that CWSPs should adopt strategies for community engagement and multi-stakeholder collaboration to provide better services to street-connected children during emergencies. A mixed methods research focusing on child maltreatment could be helpful for a better understanding of children’s sufferings during the pandemic.
The International Journal of Indian Psychology, 2023
The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it several psychological challenges. There exists limited knowledge about the impact of these challenges within an India specific context with a focus on the adolescent population. This quasi-experimental quantitative and embedded qualitative study explores the effect of the pandemic on the levels of mental disorder symptom clusters and post-traumatic growth in adolescents from lower-income households in Delhi NCR. It aims to fill the existing gap using DASS 21 and PTGI and looking into the associations between mental health and COVID-19, the impact of COVID-19 on finances, social functioning, social media use and socio-demographic factors. Results found after the correlation analysis reflected that the association between the scores received for DASS 21 and PTGI suggest a low Positive Correlation. This area of work, specifically the correlation between traumatic events and Post Traumatic Growth remains under-researched. The current study supports by highlighting the positive coping mechanisms adopted by this population.
Analysis of youths’ perspective in India on and during the pandemic of Covid-19
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Around the world, almost all countries have sought to stop the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (Covid-19) by lockdown and quarantine protocols, implemented from local to the national scale. For every scientific development and policy implementation which comprehensively connects this pandemic, the event is not very sound about the extensive socio-economic impact ushered with this disaster. In this paper, using a combined qualitative-quantitative approach, Q method, we have tried to assess the peoples’ discernment from different perspectives. This work was done through questionnaire survey method, during the national level lockdown 1.0 in India. We have differentiated the perception of youth respondents into 7 factors taking 6 dimensions on Covid-19 pandemic (viz. science, society, environment, economy, politics and religion). This work yielded a firsthand ground level insight on the comprehensive but diverse responses from the youths and their opinion for Covid-19 pandemic in I...
COVID-19 Pandemic: the Scenario of Children's Elementary Education and Well-being in Rural India
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to the prolonged closure of schools combined with the shock to the economy and the health of the population, has had an unprecedented effect on children's elementary education and wellbeing. The impact is not equal, even among children; the access to education, health care facilities and nutritional meals is limited when it comes to the poor and vulnerable children. It has both shortand long-term repercussions that put the development of an entire generation at risk. Now children are expected to be supervising their learning and other well-beings only in the homes, potentially under the guidance of parents or other family members. The present study was designed to understand and find out parents' point of view, perspective and objective on their children's education and well-being in rural scenario. Here, for the study the children of class I to IV were chosen and they all were admitting at government primary schools in their own villages. A field survey was conducted to meet 200 parents on the basis of purposive sampling technique. A structured close and open ended questionnaire was designed as a tool to collect data. Primary data were collected around 10 days from 1 st July to 10 th July, 2021. The study reported the lacuna seen in elementary education, nutrition and other well being among school going children. Strong strategies are urgently needed.