43,000 Children in the U.S. Have Lost a Parent to COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused unimaginable sorrow in the United States, leaving holes in families nationwide.
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Children under the age of 17 make up a large portion of that grieving population.
A study published in ‘JAMA Pediatrics’ on April 5 estimates that more than 43,000 children have lost a parent to COVID-19 so far.
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Black Americans, although they represent only 13.4 percent of the U.S. population, were found to represent 20 percent of the children in the study.
The Census Bureau calculated that over 62 percent of children in the Black community live in a single-parent household.
This puts them at a higher risk of being entirely orphaned if their sole parental caregiver is taken by COVID-19.
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Additionally, Pew Research Center estimates that eight percent of Black children are being raised by a grandparent.
Because elderly people are at a higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection, these grandparent-dependent children are at an increased risk of being orphaned.
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We know that the burden of mortality is not shared equally and that there are strong racial and ethnic disparities … So it’s not surprising that we found that orphanhood is disproportionately experienced by children of color, Rachel Kidman, lead author, via ‘Time’
