COVID-19 Research

The ongoing disruptive changes from efforts to reduce the spread of COVID-19 are having a substantial negative impact on the physical and mental well-being of parents and their children across the country, according to a new national survey published today in Pediatrics.

“It’s important for all of us to be patient and to be thoughtful in thinking about a new illness,” Natasha Halasa, MD, MPH, associate professor of pediatrics at VUMC, said. “As scientists, we need to work together, to collaborate, and to approach these ideas in a multidisciplinary manner.”

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are leading a nationwide study to determine the rate of novel coronavirus infection in U.S. children and their families. The study, named the HEROS (Human Epidemiology and Response to SARS-CoV-2) study and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), aims to gain insight into how many children ages 1 to 21 have been infected, the percentage of those infected who develop symptoms of COVID-19 and any differences in immune responses to the virus between children and adults within the same household.

Out of the electronic health records (EHRs) of patients seen at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, a team in the Department of Biomedical Informatics is creating a COVID-19 patient registry as a platform for research.

Tennessee parents take steps to safeguard opioids at home, an important concern when children are spending more time indoors due to COVID-19 social distancing recommendations. More than 50% of parents who filled a prescription for an opioid in the past five years kept leftover medication in the home, according to poll results.