Ohio Families Struggle during COVID-19 Pandemic

The ripple effects of the coronavirus pandemic have been far reaching, and go well beyond the health or economic concerns that tend to capture immediate attention. Child-focused researchers and advocates immediately recognized that the virus could pose risks to children and families, in terms of the social isolation, stress, anxiety, and other hardships faced. Recognizing the potential growing crisis for Ohio families and the lack of data surrounding it, leaders from Crane research projects came together to design a rapid-response study of the experiences of families with children during COVID-19.

To better understand what central Ohio parents with young children were experiencing,  Crane project researchers Kammi Schmeer, Laura Justice, Britt Singletary, Kelly Purtell, and Tzu-Jung Lin studied 559 caregivers (primarily parents) with young children living mostly in urban areas in central Ohio. They examined risk of exposure to the virus, social and economic experiences, and psychological distress of caregivers during Ohio’s stay-at-home order. They also examined positive experiences had during the crisis.

Their preliminary findings offer valuable information about the social and economic conditions of Ohio families and the psychosocial impacts during the early days of the pandemic. For instance:

The economic hardships facing families, as seen in the figure below, perhaps make the emotional and mental stress unsurprising.

It’s not all bad news. Many families reported increased family time and other positive experiences, though this was likely not enough to compensate for the negative economic and psychosocial stressors.

Overall, these findings give us a first look at the experiences of local families with children trying to manage the far-reaching impacts of the pandemic.