Studying how Canadian kids were affected by the pandemic

Thanks to efforts spearheaded by the Offord Centre for Child Studies, Canadian researchers and policy makers now have access to a wealth of information that can be used to study the health and well-being of children and youth in Canada pre and post-pandemic. Dr. Kathy Georgiades led Offord’s efforts to make this possible.

While many studies examine the effects of the pandemic on children and youth, there was nothing on a large, national scale comparing their health before and after the pandemic. Until now.

Thanks to efforts spearheaded by the Offord Centre for Child Studies – a research institute affiliated with Hamilton Health Sciences (HHS) and McMaster University – Canadian researchers and policy makers now have access to a wealth of information that can be used to study the health and well-being of children and youth in Canada pre and post-pandemic.

“In order to understand how children develop and how their health and well-being may have changed before and after the pandemic, you have to follow the same children and their families over time.” — Dr. Kathy Georgiades

This research can be used to inform future policies and programs, including those designed to best support children recovering from the pandemic, and it can also help prepare for a future health crisis, such as another pandemic.

Offord Centre researchers, with the support of a $3.1-million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and additional funding from Statistics Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, made it possible to track the health of thousands of children and youth coast-to-coast before and after the pandemic, from 2019 to 2023, and compare findings. Researchers call this a longitudinal study because it follows the same group of people over time to look for any changes in their health.

Survey data now available to researchers

On Sept. 10, Statistics Canada released data from the longitudinal component of the 2023 Canadian Health Survey on Children and Youth (CHSCY) to the Canadian research community. The survey is a follow-up to the 2019 CHSCY, involving more than 41,000 children and youth ranging in age from one to 17. Those same young people, now five to 21 years old, were invited to participate in the 2023 survey.

The 2023 longitudinal component of the CHSCY is an excellent example of how academic researchers can work collaboratively with government and community leaders to generate the evidence needed to inform policies and practices for all Canadian children, youth, and those who care for them, says Dr. Stelios Georgiades, director of the Offord Centre, McMaster Children’s Hospital Chair in Autism and Neurodevelopment, and associate professor in McMaster University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences. “The Offord Centre for Child Studies is proud to be part of this national initiative.”

The idea for a large, national longitudinal study on the pandemic’s impact on children and youth came from the Offord Centre, whose researchers secured CIHR funding to make the longitudinal component of the 2023 survey possible, and designed the survey in partnership with Statistics Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Data from this survey is now available at Research Data Centres across the country, so that researchers can access it.

Comparing before and after data

“In order to understand how children develop and how their health and well-being may have changed before and after the pandemic, you have to follow the same children and their families over time,” says Dr. Kathy Georgiades, who led the Offord Centre’s efforts to secure funding and initiate the longitudinal component of the 2023 CHSCY. Georgiades is a professor in McMaster’s University’s Department of Psychiatry and Behavioural Neurosciences. She’s also an Offord Centre member and holds the David R. (Dan) Offord Chair in Child Studies.

“Now that Statistics Canada has released the data, Offord Centre researchers can start accessing and analyzing it,” says Georgiades, adding that the information collected can help fill critical data gaps, enhancing governments’ capacity for evidence-informed policymaking for children’s health and well-being.

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For example, during the pandemic, provinces took very different approaches to school closures, with Ontario having the longest stretch of at-home learning and British Columbia having the shortest. “Did children in Ontario show greater deteriorations in health compared to children in British Columbia?” asks Georgiades. “This data might help us better understand how policy responses during the pandemic might impact children differently, so we can  make more informed  decisions the next time we face a pandemic.”

While the pandemic might be considered to be behind us, there’s no doubt that some children and families continue to struggle, adds Georgiades. “This data can help determine how to best invest resources so we’re helping children and families who have been impacted the most.”

Children’s mental health declining

When Statistics Canada released its report on the longitudinal component of the 2023 CHSCY, it made public four main findings related to the mental health of Canada’s youth:

• About one in five youth who felt their mental health was good in 2019 no longer felt that way four years later.
• Girls, especially those in their teens, were more likely than boys to report mental health declines.
• Declines in mental health were less common among younger children.
• Optimism about school diminishes with age, particularly among those with declining mental health.

There remains a wealth of data that researchers can access, so they can take a deeper dive into pandemic’s impact on children’s health.

Studying both physical and mental health

Offord researchers plan to use this longitudinal data to study children’s mental, physical and neurodevelopmental health, with special attention to changes in health and functioning; changes in health services; disruptions to education and impact on learning; and economic impacts.

It’s important to note that not all children and families would have been impacted equally, says Georgiades. Using longitudinal data from the 2019 and 2023 versions of the CHSCY will help researchers understand who was impacted the most.

“And, the next time our country faces a pandemic, we’ll be better prepared to support and protect these groups,” she says.

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