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During the COVID-19 pandemic, early childhood educators (ECEs) made a rapid pivot to remote instruction. Much of this instruction was facilitated by digital learning resources, but the nature and quality of these resources for children's language and literacy learning is an open question. This paper draws on a national U.S. survey of ECEs during the second pandemic school year (2020–2021), which asked them to report on the apps and websites they asked children to use during remote learning. We then engaged in a content analysis of the apps/websites used most frequently, evaluating their quality along several dimensions, including support for a full range of literacy competencies, equity, and accessibility. Survey results indicated that preschool children were asked to use a wide range of apps, but six were used most frequently: YouTube, Seesaw, Starfall, Epic, Boom Cards, and ABC Mouse. The content analysis indicated that most apps supported code-focused literacy skills, but had less capacity to foster oral language and comprehension. Apps also presented few opportunities to approximate the active, hands-on learning characteristic of in-person preschool. Our analysis points to the pressing need for teacher guidance in the selection and use of apps that provide comprehensive support for language and literacy. Prior State of Knowledge: Prior studies have investigated the quality of apps for young children's literacy learning, and several studies have investigated the nature and frequency of remote instruction for children attending preschool during COVID-19. Novel Contributions: The present study reports valuable information about which language and literacy apps early childhood educators asked children to use during remote learning and provides a comprehensive evaluation of those apps, including dimensions such as equity and accessibility that have been previously under-researched. Practical Implications: One important implication for administrators is that teachers need support in finding and learning to use apps that align more closely with early learning standards. Teachers can use the QuELLA rubric in this paper as a tool for evaluating apps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the small business net revenue club convergence clustering dynamics in 51 states in the United States during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. Our analysis is based on the daily data from January 10, 2020, to June 8, 2020. The results indicate that there was only one club convergence for all states during the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic. This evidence implies that the support policies enacted during the Covid-19 crisis for small and medium-sized enterprises were effective. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Times of national and international crisis are often unifying events which lower levels of division within the public and between political elites. Yet, COVID-19 pandemic responses in the United States have been viewed as markedly polarized. Using a comprehensive dataset of over four million social media posts sent by local, state, and federal level political officials between January 2020 and September 2022, this paper explores the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic was a rhetorically unifying or divisive event, and whether rhetorical responses differed across levels of government. The results show that federal level officials were less likely to message about COVID-19 and were more likely to do so in a polarizing fashion compared to state and local officials. Temporally, in the early stages of the pandemic there was indeed a collective rhetorical de-polarization across all levels of government. However, as the pandemic progressed, COVID-related messaging became more polarizing, especially among Republicans. Evidence also emerges of dynamic responsiveness from elected officials, with relativeness attentiveness to COVID increasing and polarizing rhetoric decreasing during time periods when local case counts were relatively high. These findings suggest that rhetorical unity is still possible, even in times of high political polarization, but that this unity is also short-lived and tempered by political and electoral considerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The school nurse has a crucial role in the United States and the United Kingdom and has their own expertise dedicated to school assistance for children, families, school staff, and the community. This study aims to identify the role and skills of the school nurse and understand the effects of COVID-19 on nursing skills in the following countries: The United States, the United Kingdom, and Italy. A Scoping Review was conducted following the JBI methodology for scoping reviews, following the PRISMA-ScR guidelines. Three databases were consulted: PubMed, Cinahl, and Scopus. In all, 58 studies met the eligibility criteria and were included. 93.1% of the studies were carried out in the United States, 5.2% in the United Kingdom, and 1.7% in Italy. 34.5% of the articles were published in 2020, 15.5% in 2021, 31% in 2022, and 19% in 2023. 22.4% of the studies included in the review concerned health promotion and education. Regarding the methodology of the studies, 41.5% of the studies were commentary papers, 15.5% were observational studies, and 12% were cross-sectional studies. Considering the effects of the school nurse in the United States and the United Kingdom, it is possible to reflect on how the systematic presence of a nurse could also have benefits in Italy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated incidences of domestic violence (DV). The framing of DV within media sources contributes to the public's understanding of DV. Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this paper explores representations of safety within newspapers' reporting of DV during the pandemic. The sample included newspaper articles (n = 31) from U.S. newspapers. The analysis involved multiple rounds of coding and employing "structured questions." These articles depicted limited courses of action for DV survivors and represented safety as unattainable. Safety was constructed in four ways: homes are unsafe, social services are overburdened, government failures, and the elusiveness of safety. These discursive formations provide insight regarding "idealized" social responses to DV. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Impaired discourse production is commonly reported for individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Discourse deficits can negatively impact community integration, return to employment and quality of life. COVID‐19 restrictions have reduced in‐person assessment services for people with communication impairments. Advances in telehealth may help speech and language therapists (SLTs) to assess monologic discourse more systematically and improve access to services for patients who may find it difficult to attend in‐person. Aims: To examine the feasibility of telehealth administration of narrative and procedural discourse tasks with individuals with TBI and matched controls. Methods & Procedures: A total of 20 individuals with TBI and 20 healthy controls, aged 18–55 years, were directly recruited from the UK and indirectly recruited from the US. For participants with TBI, time post‐injury was at least 3 months with no diagnosis of aphasia. Control participants were matched for sex and as closely as possible for age. Feasibility of measures was based upon the time to administer both narrative tasks, the report of any technological problems, and participant feed. Discourse samples were transcribed verbatim and analysed using story grammar analysis (for narrative discourse) and identification of propositions (for procedural discourse). Interrater reliability was calculated using percentage agreement for 50% of the data. Non‐parametric analyses were used to analyse the performance of the two groups. Outcomes & Results: Narrative and procedural discourse samples were collected via telehealth in approximately 10 min with no reported technical difficulties or complaints from any participants. For narrative discourse performance, there were significant differences for the TBI and control groups for measures of complete episodes (p < 0.001) and missing episodes (p = 0.005). No significant group differences were noted for any of the procedural discourse measures. Conclusions & Implications: Results support the feasibility of collecting discourse samples via telehealth. Although the participants' discourse performance distinguished the TBI and control groups on the narrative task, no differences between the groups were noted for the procedural task. The narrative discourse task may have been more difficult than the procedural task, or video cue support reduced the cognitive load of the procedural task. This finding suggests the use of more complex procedural tasks without video cue support may be needed. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on this subject: Although little research has explored the feasibility of administering discourse assessments for individuals with TBI via telehealth, some studies have found that discourse interventions can be feasibly administered via telehealth. It is also well established that individuals with TBI struggle with the supra‐structural and macro‐linguistic elements of discourse production. Both procedural and narrative discourse tasks have been found to differentiate individuals with TBI from healthy controls. What this paper adds to existing knowledge: Few studies have investigated the feasibility of, and procedures for, administering discourse tasks via telehealth. Additionally, the inclusion of multiple types of discourse tasks to parse cognitive–communication abilities is lacking in the current literature. Findings from this study support that narrative and procedural discourse can be feasibly sampled via telehealth and that international collaboration for research on this topic can facilitate such studies. Individuals with TBI performed more poorly on three measures of narrative discourse. No differences between groups were identified for the procedural task. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work?: Telehealth assessment for discourse provides flexibility for both the individual with TBI and the speech–language therapist and does not compromise the quality of data collected. The administration of discourse tasks and collection of data was not time‐consuming and was well accepted by the study participants. Additionally, international research collaboration not only expands potential participation in research but increases the opportunity to recruit and study more diverse groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper shows how class shaped service workers' experiences of administrative burdens during the COVID-19 pandemic. I use the pandemic and pandemic-related shutdowns as a pseudo natural experiment in which job loss was applied to a set of workers from different class backgrounds and with different class locations, workers who then turned to the state for assistance. Drawing on 46 interviews I conducted with service workers across the United States from May to October of 2020, I use Bourdieu's theory of the habitus to show how class background shaped the administrative burdens workers encountered. Workers' class origins left them with distinct approaches to bureaucracy that translated into disparate experiences of administrative burdens when workers sought unemployment insurance benefits. As a result, compared to workers from middle-class backgrounds, workers from working-class backgrounds more often experienced housing difficulties, dangerous work, and challenges to their sense of integrity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic presented a significant stressor on the public health system in the United States. While we know the immediate effects of the pandemic on public health programming, no literature has examined the resultant long-term impact on programmatic capacity for sustainability. This paper aims to identify the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic had on state tobacco control program's capacity for sustainability. Methods: From December 2018 to January 2022, we conducted 46 technical assistance calls with tobacco control program employees from 11 states. Calls were audio recorded and professionally transcribed. We analyzed calls (n = 20) that took place during the COVID-19 pandemic. Thematic analysis focused on the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on tobacco control program's capacity for sustainability. Results: We identified six domains of sustainability that were impacted by COVID-19: (1) funding stability; (2) organizational capacity; (3) partnerships; (4) communication; (5) strategic planning; and (6) program adaptation. Conclusions: Our study is the first to identify the impact of the pandemic on capacity for sustainability of tobacco control programs. Having an understanding of COVID-19's influence on these sustainability domains could help with future public health programming during significant public health events and emergency preparedness. ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT03598114. Registration date: Retrospectively registered 02-07-2018. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines whether school COVID-19 policies influenced enrollment differently by student age and race/ethnicity. Unlike much prior research, we i) analyze enrollments for virtually the entire U.S. public school population for both the 2020- 2021 and 2021-2022 school years, ii) compare enrollment trends within districts in order to isolate subgroup heterogeneity from district characteristics, and iii) account for district selection into preferred learning modes. Analyzing data on over 9,000 districts that serve more than 90% of public school students in the United States, we find enrollment responses to COVID policies differed notably. We find that White enrollments declined more than Black, Hispanic, and Asian enrollments in districts that started the 2020-2021 school year virtually, but in districts that started in-person the reverse was true: Non-White enrollments declined more than White enrollments. Moreover, Black, Hispanic, and Asian families responded more than White families to higher COVID-19 death rates in the months preceding the start of the 2021 school year. In 2021-2022, enrollment differences by the previous year's learning mode persisted. Racial/ethnic differences did not vary by whether the district required masking in classrooms. These findings are consistent with the greater risk faced by communities of color during the pandemic and demonstrate an additional source of disparate impact from COVID policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]