The New York City-based RTW Charitable Foundation approved a grant of $55,000 to NewYork-Presbyterial Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center for a study entitled, “Pediatric mental health emergencies in an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic: A multicentered study in NYC”. The study is part of a nationwide call for the pediatric medical community to address the ongoing children’s mental health crisis that has been exacerbated by the pandemic.
The study, led by investigators Cori Green, MD, Director of Behavioral Health Education and Integration in Pediatrics and Associate Professor of Clinical Pediatrics, Stephen Oh, MD, Assistant Professor of Surgery and Deborah Levine, MD, Associate Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine and Pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medicine, will examine the pandemic’s impact on children’s mental health in comparison to a one-year period prior to the pandemic, as well as the rising trend in youth presenting with suicidal ideation (SI) and suicide attempt (SA). To do this, the team will use INSIGHT, the largest multicentered clinical data network in the nation, comprised of data from five major medical centers in New York City (NYC).
The overall mission of the study is to determine whether there was an increase in mental health emergencies, including SI and SA for youth in the emergency departments of five medical centers in NYC. The investigators will characterize the pediatric patients presenting with mental health emergencies during the COVID-19 pandemic. Specifically, they will examine the impact on minority populations who were affected greatly by COVID-19 mortality and who may have chosen for their children to remain out of the classroom due to fears from the pandemic.