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Objective: To examine trends in child sleep, physical activity, and screen use during the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City with a prospective, longitudinal online survey of parents recruited from a large medical center. Methods: Data was collected Spring 2020 (“Complete Shutdown”) and Fall 2020 (“Partial Shutdown”). Outcomes were parental perceptions about changes in child sleep, physical activity, and screen time compared to before COVID-19; and contemporaneous measures of these child behaviors. We report contemporaneous responses and paired analyses to describe longitudinal changes. Results: Two hundred seventy-seven participants were surveyed during Complete Shutdown and 227 (81.9%) filled out a follow-up survey during Partial Shutdown. The largest percentage of parents at both time points perceived no change in child sleep, decreases in child exercise, and increases in child screen time. In paired analyses, perceptions shifted toward less sleep, more physical activity and less screen time from Complete Shutdown to Partial Shutdown. Conclusion: COVID-19 had negative impacts on child health behaviors that did not resolve over a 6-month period despite partial reopenings.

Background: There is increasing recognition in medical education that greater emphasis must be placed on preparing graduating medical students for their new roles as interns. Few publications in the literature have described transition-to-residency curricula specifically for students interested in pediatrics or pediatric-related fields Approach: We developed novel online pediatric cases, embedded within an innovative, hybrid transition-to-residency course, to address high yield, multi-disciplinary topics within the context of several of the AAMC’s identified Entrustable Professional Activities Evaluation: The pilot cases were evaluated over two academic years (2018, 2019) at a single academic medical center as part of routine student course evaluation (N = 18/35) with the 2019 evaluation containing additional retrospective pre-post survey questions (N = 9/18) assessing self-reported changes in knowledge. Almost all students were very satisfied or satisfied with the modules overall (94%), the quality of the resources provided (100%), and the structure and clarity of the presentation of the material (100%). Among the students who completed the retrospective pre-post survey after participation in the online modules, significant self-reported improvements were noted in writing orders to the pediatrics floor (Z = −2.07, p = 0.04), providing anticipatory guidance (Z = −2.0,p = 0.046), formulating a differential diagnosis for common pediatric conditions (Z = −2.24, P = 0.03), and preparedness for managing common pediatric floor emergencies (Z = −2.33, P = 0.02). Reflection: We demonstrated feasibility of implementation of an interactive, online case-based curriculum, medical student satisfaction with content and delivery, and increased self-reported knowledge after completion of the pilot pediatric cases on the online, asynchronous learning platform.