蜜桃影视

The Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development, or RAPID project,聽gathers essential information on unmet needs and health-promoting behaviors for the well-being of children and families, and distributes that information immediately to key stakeholders, advocacy groups, family facing organizations and families.

Dr. Phil Fisher studies the brains of young children in real life, not the laboratory. 鈥淏rains develop in the context of the world they grow up in,鈥� he says. And that world has been turned upside down by the coronavirus pandemic.

Initially, pandemic stress was an equal-opportunity phenomenon, afflicting virtually all Americans up and down the socioeconomic ladder. What concerns Fisher鈥擯hilip H. Knight Chair and professor of psychology at the University of Oregon鈥攊s that while parents and caregivers in middle- and upper-income households are generally regaining their equilibrium, mental health difficulties in lower-income households鈥� persist and, indeed, continue to rise.

Fisher鈥檚 concern derives from data based on voices of households with children five years and younger. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e telling us directly,鈥� Fisher says.

A partnership with , an online community and news source for parents, enables Fisher鈥檚 team to reach a thousand households per week who live at 150% of the federal poverty level or below. Each week, a survey goes out to potential new participants, and a follow-up survey goes to participants who indicated interest in continuing to respond.

Families are grateful to take part, he says. 鈥淭hey recognize that this is an opportunity for them to share their voice and their story.鈥�

The data point to an ever-widening gap in well-being between lower-income households and others, which Fisher says may stem from a lack of food and a loss of school meals. He also sees alarming deficits in health care, child care and social supports. 鈥淔or the youngest kids, direct in-person services in home or at a center have become impossible,鈥� he says. The short- and long-term hazards are not hard to envision.

Zeroing in on households that include young children with disabilities, the data show significantly higher rates of stress, depression and anxiety in adults and children alike.

鈥淲e need more adequate supports,鈥� Fisher summarizes, 鈥渁nd they need to be targeted and precise. The data show us who needs what, in order to increase prosperity for us all.鈥�

True to its acronym, the Rapid Assessment of Pandemic Impact on Development (RAPID) came together rapidly, with funders and researchers acting with urgency appropriate to the crisis. 鈥淥ur nation wasn鈥檛 prepared,鈥� Fisher says. 鈥淲e didn鈥檛 have actionable scientific data.鈥� RAPID is making up for lost time.

Whereas much of the research in his field is 鈥渟iloed, technical and inaccessible,鈥� Fisher and team designed this project to generate recommendations that shared widely to inform local, state and national decisions. Stay tuned for the policy briefs, which will start coming out in a few weeks.

He wants policy makers to feel his urgency. 鈥淚f young children get off track,鈥� he says, 鈥淚t鈥檚 hard to get them back on.鈥� He describes the stress that鈥檚 going around as a disease not just of the brain but the whole body. Long-term chronic stress can overwhelm the immune system and other functions.

We face a danger of what Fisher calls an extended second curve鈥攖hat is, a pandemic of mental health crises over and above the COVID-19 infection rates, charting closely with associated variables such as inadequate nutrition.

He points out that harm can be mitigated if action is taken swiftly. 鈥淭he presence of supportive, responsive adults brings systems back into balance,鈥� he says. Social supports for parents and caregivers benefit those young brains.

He believes that RAPID exemplifies how his field can have an impact on decision making during this crisis and in the future. 鈥淭his is the best of what science and data can do鈥�amplifying issues that aren鈥檛 receiving enough attention.鈥�