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Background: Viral infection during pregnancy induces pro-inflammatory cytokines and increases the level of IL-6, which as a measure of the inflammation of the mother's immune system is effective on the development of the brain of the fetus and increases the rate of mental disorders of the fetus. The possible effect of the mother's COVID-19 on children, if any, is still unknown. Therefore, this study was conducted with the aim of investigating and comparing the consequences of neurodevelopment and growth at the age of 6 months in infants among mothers with/without exposure to COVID-19 during pregnancy in Birjand, 2021.Methods: A total of 161 pregnant women with PCR-positive coronavirus and 181 pregnant women without infection were selected by simple random sampling. Demographic characteristics including age, occupation, education, gender, nationality, sex of babies, along with data related to the neurodevelopmental status of infants by the use of ASQ questionnaire were extracted and entered into SPSS 16 software. For descriptive statistics, Mean, standard deviation, and frequency distribution tables were used, and inferential analyses were conducted by the use of Chi-square, t-test, and analysis of variance at a significance level of less than 0.05. The disturbance was equal / lower than 1 SD in each of ASQ-3 score domains.Results: In this cohort study, demographic characteristics in the exposed and unexposed groups were not significantly different. There was no statistically significant difference between the average score of the ASQ_3 questionnaires as well as the average score in the areas of communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem-solving, and social personality among infants born from mothers with and without COVID-19. Also, there was no significant difference in the incidence of disorders in different fields of neurodevelopment, except for the field of establishing communication between the two groups of exposed and unexposed. On the other hand, cesarean delivery was significantly higher in pregnant mothers with COVID-19 during pregnancy. However, there was no significant relationship between the incidence of COVID-19 and the rate of premature delivery, and low birth weight neonates. In addition, the severity and time of the corona infection during pregnancy did not have any significant effect on the neurodevelopment of infants with intrauterine exposure to COVID-19.Conclusion: According to the results of the study, infection with COVID-19 does not increase the incidence of developmental disorders in 6-month-old infants. Furthermore, it does not increase low birth weight and premature delivery. Due to the limitations of the study, it is suggested to conduct a study with a larger number of pregnant mothers with a severe form of the disease, especially in the first trimester of pregnancy, and to follow up with the babies at an older age.
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Maternal educational attainment has been identified as relevant to several child health and development outcomes. This study aimed to evaluate the association of sociodemographic and maternal education factors with child development in families living below the poverty line. A cross-sectional study was conducted through telephone contact from May to July 2021 in Ceará, a state in Northeastern Brazil. The study population comprised families with children up to six years of age participating in the cash transfer program "Mais infância". The families selected to participate in this program must have a monthly per capita income of less than US$16.50. The Ages and Stages Questionnaire version 3 was applied to assess the children's development status. The mothers reported maternal educational attainment as the highest grade and or degree obtained. The final weighted and adjusted model showed that maternal schooling was associated with the risk of delay in all domains except for the fine motor domain. The risk of delay in at least one domain was 2.5-fold higher in mothers with a lower level of schooling (95% CI: 1.6-3.9). The findings of this study suggest that mothers with higher educational attainment have children with better child development outcomes.
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Stunted growth is a condition in which toddlers are less than their age or height. As a result, non-optimal nutritional needs were satisfied in the first 1000 days of life. A child suffering from stunting has a slower cognitive and physical development than he should. Stunting also decreases productivity and health. This disease has a risk of degenerative diseases such as diabetes. Stunting in children under five requires special attention because it inhibits physical, mental, and cognitive development effects. Stunting at an early age can increase the risk of death, morbidity, and non-optimal posture in adulthood. Stunting prevention requires behavior change in all intervention targets, especially the primary targets, mothers and toddlers. The number of blockages and malnutrition in Indonesia is expected to increase significantly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic has made it more challenging to meet children's nutrition during their growth and development. This pandemic has also prevented monitoring activities for the growth and development of children early in life. The monitoring activities are usually implemented at Integrated Healthcare Centers in villages or in Posyandu. If approximately undetectable through weight measures, body length, and head circumference, children can suffer from chronic malnutrition and become inhibited. Therefore, our $SiCenting+Team$ created a Website about Stunting education for the community in Pandeglang Regency. $SiCenting+is$ an application developed for Mothers, Policymakers, and Posyandu. Extensive data was processed to assist stunting screening for use by cadres with family profiles related to specific nutritional factors and sensitive nutrition. Furthermore, villages can use this data to plan the budget for stunting reduction programs at the village level through village deliberations. The $SiCenting+website$ can be opened via a web browser with the following URL address: https://sicenting.id/ © 2022 IEEE.
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With the growth and development of COVID-19 and its variants, reaching a level of herd immunity is critically important for national security in public health. To deal with COVID-19, the United States has implemented phased plans to distribute COVID-19 vaccines. As of November 2022, over 80% of Americans had received their first shot to guard against COVID-19, and 68.6% were considered fully vaccinated, according to the dataset provided by CDC. However, a significant number of American people still hesitate to receive a shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. This paper aims to demystify COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy by analyzing various socioeconomic characteristics among individuals and communities, including unemployment rate, age groups, median household income, and education level. A multiple regression modeling and data visualization analysis show patterns with an increasing trend of vaccine hesitancy associated with a lower median household income, a younger age group, and a lower education level, which would help policymakers to make policies accordingly to target vaccine support information and remove this hurdle to end the COVID-19 pandemic effectively. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
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Objectives: This study investigated the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the primary health care (PHC) services to follow-up the child growth and development (CGD) in Brazil. Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted using secondary data related visits to assess the growth and development of children up to five years between Apr-2017 to Mar-2021. Differences between monthly rate of visits (per thousand inhabitants up to five) during the pandemic (Apr-2020 to Mar-2021) and before (Apr-2017 to Mar-2020) were analyzed using paired t test and control diagrams (averages ± 1.96 standard deviation). Results: A total of 39,599,313 visits for monitoring CGD was studied. The average monthly rate of visits dropped from 61.34 (per thousand) before the pandemic to 39.70 in the first 12 months of the pandemic (p < 0.001). In all states, except Rio Grande do Sul, there was a significant reduction, with differences ranging from -14.21% in São Paulo to -59.66% in Ceará. The Northeast region was the most impacted, being lower than expected in all 12 first months of pandemic. Conclusions: The number of visits to follow-up the CGD in PHC in Brazil decreased during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, varying over the months and between states and regions.
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A holistic approach of the nursing profession has enabled nurses to identify the comprehensive needs of the child and family and to provide developmental and family- centered care. Since the beginning of the COVID -19 pandemic around the world, children and their parents have been exposed to a great deal of stress and their daily lives have changed dramatically. These vast changes, along with feelings of hopelessness and insecurity, pose a potential risk factor for children's growth and development. Factors such as high parental stress and parental anxiety due to Concerns about their child being infected with COVID-19, insomnia, school closures, excessive use of virtual space, unhealthy nutrition, social restrictions, reduced levels of physical activity, reduced social activities especially in adolescents, family economic problems and its negative consequences in creating unbalanced conditions in the family, can endanger the growth and development of the child and the health of the parents along with creating diffcult childhood experiences (ACEs). In this review study, the effects and outcomes of COVID-19 on different physical, psychological and mental dimensions of children and their parents are presented based on the studies that have been done in this feld so far. Recognizing the negative factors and effects of COVID- 19 on the growth and development of children and parents' health, can help nurses and health care providers for implementing developmental care in children and families.
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Artificial intelligence (AI) shape the business enterprises and enable in realizing enhanced growth and development. It has been observed that the application of AI enables in influencing the organizational culture in an effective manner thereby enhancing the working environment which will lead to better productivity and output. The implementation of AI support in enhancing the entrepreneurial aspects through enhancing the cultural and ethical aspects and influence better decision making, create new business practices which will harness human capital and effective leadership capabilities. It has been regarded that the implementation of AI possesses the overall ability to quickly understand the business process and address the issues efficiently for superior performance. The companies which apply AI enable in enhancing the service delivery, understand customer requirements, forecast the business patterns for realizing growth and development. It has been regarded that the current organizational environment is focusing in implementing effective and dynamic capabilities which will influence in attaining growth and success in an effective manner Therefore, the overall success to these initiatives is mainly based on the changes in the internal and external environment, and culture & ethical aspects are being applied in the organizational context. The application of effective leadership support in enhancing the organizational culture and which will create better entrepreneurial aspect for effective performance. This study is focused in addressing the critical strategic evaluation of implementing Artificial Intelligence towards shaping Entrepreneurial Development during COVID- 19 Outbreaks. In its pure essence it is focused in understanding the critical nature of culture and ethical aspect which will enable in creating better programs and support entrepreneurial spirit. © 2022 IEEE.
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The People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India attained unprecedented growth and economic development resulting in remarkable poverty reduction and human development in the last three decades but continue to struggle with high-income inequality. These two economies share several common characteristics, prospects and challenges. However, their approaches and trends in growth and development have been distinctly different. This paper examines the differences between the PRC and India in the trends and patterns of development as well as their performance in addressing three major development challenges—namely, quality of growth and development;poverty reduction and income inequality. This topic is particularly relevant with the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic which has devasted economies worldwide since January 2020 and will move millions of people below the poverty line. In lieu of this crisis, it is very important to examine if the lessons learned from PRC and India can be useful for other developing economies that are struggling to improve their economic development and quality of growth. Using econometric analyses, this paper explores the determinants of poverty reduction. It also empirically analyzes the relation between income inequality and its major determinants, particularly growth rate of real GDP for the PRC, India and major southeast Asian economies. Copyright © Biswanath Bhattacharyay and Madhurima (Rima) Bhattacharyay.
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The consequence of the complexity of contemporary challenges has a significant impact on the management sphere. Growth and development are two critical stages in the lifecycle of any organization, enterprise, or corporation as a system. The purpose of this study is to conduct an overview of strategic management discourse to characterize the relationship between growth and development processes with the aim of alleviating complexity. In this regard, we conduct a bibliographic analysis in the Web of Science database using a systematic literature review along with a systems thinking approach as a method to synthesize the findings and finally propose a conceptual framework. According to the findings of this study, a lack of attention to the importance of the relationship between growth and development processes is identified. This implies a gap in this research area, emphasizing the importance of more focus on these processes regardless of their attributes. The implications of the findings in this article will provide a holistic perspective for strategic management practitioners, allowing a better understanding of the importance of growth and development convergence. Consequently, this study may provide a path for future research to explore the implications of growth and development process in other disciplines of management.
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The demographic dividend is an essential measure of the growth and development of a country. It refers to the economy’s growth due to a shift in the age structure in the country’s population. In India, around 90% of the population is under the age of 60, which is a stark contrast compared to the world, where more than 20% of the population lies above 60. Such a young population ensures that the working-age group will be vibrant in the coming years, adding to the country’s overall productivity. Today, COVID has caused much damage to an already vibrant economy, because of which millions of people have lost their jobs and have had to migrate back to their hometowns. To recover from this severe damage and take stock of the existing and incoming workforce, it is necessary to identify and analyze the current population that lies in suitable age ranges and understand how to use them optimally. Therefore, analyzing the demographic dividend to identify the workforce of the country becomes an essential task. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
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The objective of this study was to determine those key variables or factors that characterize ecommerce in Peru and will drive its growth and development to reach the turnover levels of the main Latin American economies. In this sense, a PEST analysis was conducted to identify the most relevant variables of the system studied. Then, based on an exploratory and descriptive design, a structural analysis (French strategic foresight technique) was carried out with the participation of 5 experts in ecommerce and digital media. Likewise, the MICMAC tool (Matrix of Cross Impacts Multiplication Applied to a Classification) was used to determine the levels of motricity and dependency of each proposed variable. The results identified consumer electronics culture as the most sensitive variable and, to a lesser extent, the variables of ecommerce application development, consumer banking and consumer distrust. Furthermore, it was found that the COVID 19 pandemic has had a positive impact on the adoption of ecommerce in Peru. Finally, this study constitutes a starting point for the planning and design of future scenarios for the behavior of the ecommerce system in Peru in the medium and long term. © 2021 IEEE.
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In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, education has stepped up some of its long-overdue transformations. Higher education (HE) and Engineering Education (E.E.), particularly, is facing a potential crisis. Engineering schools and professional societies are dealing with several pressing problems that potentially threaten their survival. Although E.E. leaders are bound to focus on short-term survival, sustainable growth and development in the long term must also feature in the agenda. In this work, the context of disruption in the education domain is revisited through a literature review, related threats and opportunities are identified, and a strategic way forward is investigated in those lights from Engineering Education's perspective to inform a pragmatic futurist's perspective. A needs-driven innovation model (why-what-how approach) is pursued to present the study where the shift in mindset, changes in infrastructure, and leveraging digital technologies emerged as the central concepts. Each of those broad implementation categories encompassed various subsequent initiatives such as a life-long learner's mindset, a focus on how-to-learn, a strong emphasis on professional skill development, industry-academia alliances, a reflective broadening of engineers' considerations, and extensive opportunities for multi-disciplinary collaboration. To this end, we propose a pragmatic futuristic framework for accessible access to affordable, relevant, and personalized education for learners, faculty, and institutions from all diverse backgrounds. The new framework encourages fresh relationships among the key actors in the context of new modalities for the transfer and co-creation of knowledge, requirements, and possibilities for change in operational models and tapping into the boundary-breaking opportunities fostered by digital ways of teaching and learning. This study aims to provide a future-proof pathway for the engineering education ecosystem to better equip it for solving real-world problems with a multi-disciplinary approach to create new value for society. In the process, the study also sheds light on relevant new research avenues. © American Society for Engineering Education, 2021
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Civil protection has attracted considerable attention due to its role in disaster management and preparedness, being essential in alerting the public about potential disasters and crisis recovery measures. However, there is limited research on civil protection and its vital role in urban economy recovery. Therefore, we sought to comprehensively investigate the impact of civil protection on economic growth and the development of the urban economy, focusing on a small-sized Greek city, Kozani, as a case study. We utilized data from 160 residents of Kozani. The study findings confirmed that the key focus areas of civil protection, namely, the national early warning system, crisis preparedness measures and economy rescue operations, significantly affect economic growth and development. Furthermore, the key strategies essential for improved civil protection, such as government support, positively affect economic growth.
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Compared with adults, children are less likely infected with SARS-CoV-2 and are often asymptomatic when infected. However, infection in children can lead to severe disease. The pandemic affects the lives of all children, especially those with lower socioeconomic status. This review highlights the physiological impacts of COVID-19 in early life.
Subject(s)
COVID-19 , Adult , Child , Humans , Infant , Pandemics , SARS-CoV-2ABSTRACT
There are few evidence-based data on the actual duration of breastfeeding, on the reasons for weaning, or on the development and growth of infants fed with infant formula. Evaluating this is an important aspect of the discussion of preventive measures.The aim of the current project was to observe new-borns/infants, who were fed with infant formula PRE or one of the "Zurück zum Ursprung" (Back to the Origin; Company Hofer KG, Sattledt, Austria) products after weaning, with regard to growth (length, weight), acceptance and any other abnormalities, and to evaluate the results. Furthermore, emerging nutrition-related questions that the mothers asked during counselling were documented.Seventeen new-borns/infants were observed over a period of 6 months, at seven consultations, approximately 4 weeks apart, and their length and weight were measured. The results were then evaluated using age-appropriate percentiles. In addition, acceptance was assessed and any abnormalities were documented. Questions on nutrition-related issues were discussed with the mothers based on evidence-based information.Except for one infant, who was already well above the 97th percentile at the start of the observation, all the other 16 infants showed a developmentally appropriate physiological course of length and weight. The formula milk was accepted by all infants without exception.The mothers' emerging questions and nutritional issues showed that practical tips based on evidence-based facts were preferred to so-called "general recommendations" from companies or the media. Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, the observation was continued on a smaller scale as a pilot study and produced interesting results. As a future perspective, long-term observation of the monitored babies would be interesting, in order to be able to gain important knowledge for preventive nutritional measures.