# COVID-19 Vaccinations and School / Community Resources: Children's Longitudinal Health and Education Outcomes Using Linked Administrative Data

> **NIH NIH U01** · NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE · 2024 · $662,456

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
This research will examine how significant disruptions to children’s health, education and overall well-being
during the COVID-19 pandemic created lasting influence on health, development and social trajectories
through the lifecourse, and the risk for long-term health outcomes. Effects of the pandemic are unevenly
distributed amongst children, particularly with respect to race/ethnicity and income, and are anticipated to both
reflect and exacerbate the already wide health disparities in the United States. As vaccines continue to roll out,
inequality in access to and take up of vaccinations could compound the disparate outcomes.
New York City (NYC), where the 1 million public school children are majority Black or Hispanic (66%) and 74%
are low-income, is an ideal place to situate this research. In the health domain, changes in diet and physical
activity and missed healthcare may increase incidence and exacerbation of chronic diseases like obesity,
asthma and diabetes. The pandemic generated stress and anxiety, with fewer of the usual mental health
services supports available, posing risk for new and more severe health problems. Even after schools fully
return to in-person learning, the educational consequences are expected to be protracted – including declines
in academic achievement (test scores), increases in chronic absenteeism, repeating grades, or high school
dropout. The research leverages the NYC Student Population Health Registry (SPHR), a uniquely inclusive,
longitudinal database of all NYC public school students, created jointly by the NYC Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene and NYC Department of Education to examine these and other outcomes. SPHR links multiple
municipal data sources at the child-level, allowing us to examine the influence of the COVID pandemic on
myriad outcomes. The impact of variation in child-level, classroom-level and school-level vaccination rates will
be important to understand, and it is expected that neighborhood and school characteristics (income,
vaccination sites, emergency food resources, open space) will mitigate (or exacerbate) sustained impacts.
Identifying sources of resilience, at either the individual or neighborhood level, is a public health priority.
The specific aims are:
 • Aim 1: With a focus on disparities, determine health and education changes among children 2-4 years
 after pandemic onset compared to pre-pandemic using a new, comprehensive and powerful set of
 linked child-level administrative data.
• Aim 2: Determine how child-level, school-level and neighborhood-level COVID vaccination rates
 influence the course of the COVID pandemic, with a focus on disparities.
• Aim 3: Determine the role of neighborhood and school resources in exacerbating or mitigating health
and educational disparities due to the COVID pandemic.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10844481
- **Project number:** 5U01NR020443-04
- **Recipient organization:** NEW YORK UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
- **Principal Investigator:** Brian Elbel
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $662,456
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-22 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10844481

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10844481, COVID-19 Vaccinations and School / Community Resources: Children's Longitudinal Health and Education Outcomes Using Linked Administrative Data (5U01NR020443-04). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10844481. Licensed CC0.

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