Peer-reviewed article
SARS pandemic exposure impaired early childhood development in China
Yunfei Fan, Huiyu Wang, Qiong Wu, Xiang Zhou, Yubo Zhou et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001A retrospective study of 14,647 children in China found that exposure to the 2003 SARS pandemic was associated with delayed developmental milestones. Children who experienced SARS showed significantly delayed achievement of key developmental skills including independent walking, speaking in complete sentences, counting, and self-care abilities. The study suggests that pandemics may have lasting effects on early childhood development through social and mental stress.
Key points
- Children exposed to SARS showed 3.17 times higher hazard ratio for delayed independent walking
- Delayed speech development (complete sentences) had hazard ratio of 3.98 in SARS-exposed children
- Counting ability (0-10) was delayed with hazard ratio of 4.96 in exposed children
- Self-care skills (undressing for urination) were most severely delayed with hazard ratio of 5.57
- Study included longitudinal measurements across 14,647 children
Limitations
The study is retrospective and cannot establish causation with certainty, only association. It does not specify the mechanisms by which SARS exposure caused delays or whether these delays persisted into later childhood.
Abstract
Social and mental stressors associated with the pandemic of a novel infectious disease, e.g., COVID-19 or SARS may promote long-term effects on child development. However, reports aimed at identifying the relationship between pandemics and child health are limited. A retrospective study was conducted to associate the SARS pandemic in 2003 with development milestones or physical examinations among longitudinal measurements of 14,647 children. Experiencing SARS during childhood was associated with delayed milestones, with hazard ratios of 3.17 (95% confidence intervals CI: 2.71, 3.70), 3.98 (3.50, 4.53), 4.96 (4.48, 5.49), or 5.57 (5.00, 6.20) for walking independently, saying a complete sentence, counting 0-10, and undressing him/herself for urination, respectively. These results suggest relevant impacts from COVID-19 on child development should be investigated.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Natural experiment: exposure to SARS pandemic in 2003
- Population
- 14,647 children in China with longitudinal developmental measurements
Key finding
Independent walking: hazard ratio 3.17 (95% CI: 2.71-3.70)