Enhancing child mental health in school and community settings: A pilot study of the kids' empowerment program.

Many children experience serious mental health problems that, if left untreated, have long-term consequences for their optimal development. Many more have symptoms that fall below clinical thresholds and remain untreated. Yet there are substantial barriers to receiving help. A newly developed preventive intervention program focused on promoting emotional well-being was provided to children in school and community settings and evaluated to assess its effects on mental health outcomes of children's anxiety and depression. Participants in both intervention and control groups completed standardized measures of mental health in interviews (children) and online (parents) at baseline and approximately 12 weeks later. Intent to treat analyses showed a significant interaction effect for program children high in anxiety at baseline using child report. Similar results were found when using per protocol data (number of sessions attended). No effects were found for the outcome of depression with the intent to treat analyses using either child or parent report. However, children who attended more sessions experienced greater change in parent-rated depression and the interaction of sessions attended and baseline depression significantly predicted change in depression when using both child and parent report. Thus, children with greater internalizing problems appeared to benefit most from the program. These preliminary results suggest that it may be possible to address children's mental health challenges in community and school settings. Implications for future study and program enhancements are discussed. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Disparities in COVID-19-related stressful life events in the United States: Understanding who is most impacted.

Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States have been exacerbated by pre-existing inequities in resources and opportunities, leaving the most vulnerable to face a multitude of hardships. The goal of the current study was to characterise COVID-19-related stressful life events in specific life domains and to identify the sociodemographic characteristics of individuals who are more likely to experience such events. Participants (n = 372, 57% female) in a follow-up study of the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development completed the Epidemic-Pandemic Impacts Inventory (June-August 2020) to assess COVID-19-related stressors. Sociodemographic factors (gender, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status and wealth) were examined simultaneously as predictors of the number of stressful life events in separate categories of work/finances, home life, social activity, health and healthcare, adjusted for covariates (household size, community COVID-19 transmission risk). In negative binomial regression analyses, being female (vs. male) predicted a 31%, 64%, 13% and 94% increase in the number of stressful life events in domains of work/finances, home life, social activity and healthcare, respectively, whereas each one standard deviation increase in wealth predicted a 17%, 16% and 21% reduction in the number of stressful life events in domains of work/finances, COVID-19 infection and healthcare, respectively. Findings highlight the pronounced and far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on women as well as the unique role wealth may play in lessening such impacts. This new knowledge may be leveraged to develop intervention and policy-related strategies to remediate impacts of COVID-19-related stressors on those most vulnerable.