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1. Children and the COVID-19 Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.17603/ds2-gha4-x973  

   Lefkowitz, Zoe; Villarreal, Melissa; Peek, Lori; Fothergill, Alice (January 2024, Designsafe-CI)

   This project explores how children and youth below the age of 18 sought to help others during the COVID-19 pandemic. We used the data included in this publication to answer research questions such as “How did children in the U.S. help others and themselves during the COVID-19 pandemic?” and “What issues were children in the U.S. concerned about during the COVID-19 pandemic?” This project includes a data dictionary and a dataset that summarizes a unique collection of 115 news articles focused on the helping behaviors and key concerns of children in the U.S. during the pandemic. The articles appeared in print or online news sources between 2020 and 2023. We searched for media coverage using terms such as “kids,” “help,” “volunteer,” “actions,” “pandemic,” and “COVID-19.” Over time we refined and added additional search terms based on emergent themes such as “raising money,” “making personal protective equipment,” and “helping with homework.” We limited our searches by language (English), geography (the United States), and time (an article had to be published between January 2020, when the virus was first detected in the U.S., and November 2023, when we ended our searches for the dataset). When we identified news coverage that fit our definition of helping behaviors, we saved a PDF of the article (all PDFs are available upon request from the PI). Information included in this dataset is summarized as follows: (1) article citation and link; (2) article synopsis; (3) information on the child or children featured in the article; (4) summary of key helping behaviors or other actions taken by children during the pandemic; (5) information on who children were trying to help or what type of change they were attempting to influence; (6) quotes from children or youth; and (7) notations of photos, videos, or links to additional resources. The envisioned audience for this data includes social science and public health researchers, journalists, and policy makers with an interest in children and the pandemic, specifically, or disasters and altruism, more broadly. 

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2. From Protein to Pandemic: The Transdisciplinary Approach Needed to Prevent Spillover and the Next Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.3390/v13071298  

   Plowright, Raina K.; Hudson, Peter J. (July 2021, Viruses)

   null (Ed.)

   Pandemics are a consequence of a series of processes that span scales from viral biology at 10−9 m to global transmission at 106 m. The pathogen passes from one host species to another through a sequence of events that starts with an infected reservoir host and entails interspecific contact, innate immune responses, receptor protein structure within the potential host, and the global spread of the novel pathogen through the naive host population. Each event presents a potential barrier to the onward passage of the virus and should be characterized with an integrated transdisciplinary approach. Epidemic control is based on the prevention of exposure, infection, and disease. However, the ultimate pandemic prevention is prevention of the spillover event itself. Here, we focus on the potential for preventing the spillover of henipaviruses, a group of viruses derived from bats that frequently cross species barriers, incur high human mortality, and are transmitted among humans via stuttering chains. We outline the transdisciplinary approach needed to prevent the spillover process and, therefore, future pandemics. 

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3. Water Utilities and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of Pandemic-Related Research

   https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784483954.052  

   Thelemaque, Nathalie; Spearing, Lauryn A.; Faust, Kasey M.; Kaminsky, Jessica (March 2022, ASCE Construction Research Congress)
4. The International System After Trump and the Pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.1525/curh.2021.120.822.3  

   Hicken, Allen; Jones, Pauline; Menon, Anil (January 2021, Current History)

   null (Ed.)

   The Trump administration sought to erode confidence in the international system, which it regarded as an affront to national sovereignty. The COVID-19 pandemic, by raising collective awareness of the need for global cooperation, may help to restore that confidence and encourage renewed commitment to multilateralism. Public opinion polls show that people around the world have greater confidence in global institutions like the World Health Organization than in national leaders like Donald Trump or Xi Jinping. The United States will continue to be an indispensable partner after Trump, but the international order will rest on a stronger footing if Washington is no longer expected to be the prime mover and contributes instead as one among equals. 

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5. Pre-pandemic mental health and brain characteristics predict adolescent stress and emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic

   https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0334028  

   Risner, Matthew; Hu, Linfeng; Stamoulis, Catherine (October 2025, PLOS One)

   Seyedmirzaei, Homa (Ed.)

   The COVID-19 pandemic had profound effects on developing adolescents that, to date, remain incompletely understood. Youth with preexisting mental health problems and associated brain alterations were at increased risk for higher stress and poor mental health. This study investigated impacts of adolescent pre-pandemic mental health problems and their neural correlates on stress, negative emotions and poor mental health during the first 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. N = 2,641 adolescents (median age = 12.0 years) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort were studied, who had pre-pandemic data on anxiety, depression, and behavioral (attention, aggression, social withdrawal, internalizing, externalizing) problems, longitudinal survey data on mental health, stress and emotions during the first 15 months following the outbreak, structural MRI, and resting-state fMRI. Data were analyzed using mixed effects mediation and moderation models. Preexisting mental health and behavioral problems predicted higher stress, negative affect and negative emotions (β = 0.09–0.21, CI=[0.03,0.32]), and lower positive affect (β = −0.21 to −0.09, CI=[−0.31,-0.01]) during the first ~6 months of the outbreak. Pre-pandemic structural characteristics of brain regions supporting social function and emotional processing (insula, superior temporal gyrus, orbitofrontal cortex, and the cerebellum) mediated some of these relationships (β = 0.10–0.15, CI=[0.01,0.24]). The organization of pre-pandemic brain circuits moderated (attenuated) associations between preexisting mental health and pandemic stress and negative emotions (β = −0.17 to −0.06, CI=[−0.27,-0.01]). Preexisting mental health problems and their structural brain correlates were risk factors for youth stress and negative emotions during the early months of the outbreak. In addition, the organization of some brain circuits was protective and attenuated the effects of preexisting mental health issues on youth responses to the pandemic’s stressors. 

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