FOREWORD: The Impact of COVID-19 on Children's Lives in the United States: Amplified Inequities and a Just Path to Recovery

Dr. Oberg has convened a talented team of child health professionals to reflect on the bio-psychosocial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic for children and their families.¹ The team begins by noting the extant systemic inequities that have been accentuated by the pandemic, including racism and xenophobia. Following years of oppression, minority families are less likely to own health insurance and more likely to experience chronic health conditions that put them “at risk” for serious COVID-19 infection.

The authors include a very helpful figure that summarizes factors that foster the inequities. These include: economic, mental health/well being, healthcare and education/schooling. Much of the remainder of the paper is devoted to describing specific attributes of each of the factors (e.g., housing insecurity) that contribute to the inequities. Given the inequities that the pandemic has amplified, the final pages focus on the authors’ recommendations for an equitable and just recovery. Specifically, they recommend interventions within each of the four factors they have employed to organize the manuscript (e.g., improve economic security by making the Refundable Dependent Child Tax Credit permanent).

During future pandemics our children will benefit from caring, responsive adults who promote children's access to quality health care, education and safe environments that foster the physical and mental health of all our children. In Dr. William Gerson's insightful commentary (ref) that follows Dr. Oberg's paper in this issue Dr. Gerson posits that combining the science summarized in Dr. Oberg's paper with a caring community form the foundation of a “just and civil society”; these two critically important elements have always demanded constant vigilance from all of us.