Study quantifies how many children in the U.S. have lost a parent during Covid-19 pandemic
A letter published in
JAMA Pediatrics, co-authored by Rachel Kidman, PhD, of the Program in Public Health at Stony Brook University, presents a statistical model showing that around 40,000 children (est. between 37,000 and 43,000) had lost a parent due to the Covid-19 pandemic by February 2021. This amounts to an average of one child losing a parent for every 13 Covid-19 deaths.
Children face immense challenges in the wake of the pandemic. While there have been anecdotal reports of children losing parents, this is the first study to estimate the increase in orphan rates nationwide. The authors also published an Op Ed in the