ArticleApplied health economics and health policy2022
The Effects of School Closures on COVID-19: A Cross-Country Panel Analysis.
Article in Applied health economics and health policy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 43 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness of social distancing measures and lockdowns for reducing transmission of COVID-19 in non-healthcare, community-based settings.Philosophical transactions. Series A, Mathematical, physical, and engineering sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Age-specific COVID-19 case dynamics during school closure periods: Evidence from 12 european countries.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2026Article
- [Infection epidemiological effects of school closures during the second COVID-19 pandemic wave-an exemplary analysis within a lower Bavarian region].Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2024Article
- Pandemic preparedness: On the efficacy of non-pharmaceutical interventions in COVID-19 and about approaches to predict future pandemic viruses.Microbial biotechnology · 2024Article
- Anxiety disorders among children and adolescents during COVID-19 lockdowns and school closures: a cross-sectional study in Kuwait.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2024Article
- Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices Toward Physical Literacy Among the College Students During COVID-19 School Closure.Journal of multidisciplinary healthcare · 2024Article
- Evaluation of a COVID-19 rapid antigen testing program among student athletes in a public high school district.Evaluation and program planning · 2023Article
- The effect of self-esteem on the spread of a pandemic. A cross-country analysis of the role played by self-esteem in the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.Social science & medicine (1982) · 2023Article
- Deterioration of Mental Health in Children and Adolescents During the COVID-19 Pandemic.Journal of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry · 2023Article
- Improving Surveillance and Epidemic Response in Ohio Childcare Settings.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Carrot and stick: Economic support and stringency policies in response to COVID-19.Evaluation and program planning · 2022Article
- Explaining vaccine hesitancy: A COVID-19 study of the United States.Managerial and decision economics : MDE · 2022Article
- Back to school or … back to lockdown? The effects of opening schools on the diffusion of COVID-19 in Italian regions.Socio-economic planning sciences · 2022Review
- COVID-19 Diffusion Before Awareness: The Role of Football Match Attendance in Italy.Journal of sports economics · 2022Article
- Parent and Child Anxiety Evaluated During an Early Period of the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Study.Journal of patient-centered research and reviews · 2022Article
- Fighting the COVID pandemic: National policy choices in non-pharmaceutical interventions.Journal of policy modelingArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThere has been much debate about the effects and importance of closing, keeping closed, or not opening schools in order to prevent COVID-19 contagion. This policy has been questioned regarding both its efficacy and the social cost it entails, including the possible asymmetric impact it has on genders in many societies due to traditional childcare roles. To the best of our knowledge no existing contribution has attempted to gauge the effectiveness of such a policy over time, in a longitudinal cross-country perspective.
objectivesThis paper aimed to fill the gap in the literature by assessing, at a European level, the effect of school closures (or the lack of such measures) on the numbers of new COVID-19 infections, in the absence of vaccines. Given this policy's expected change in effectiveness over time, we also measured the effectiveness of having schools closed after a given number of days (from 7 to 100).
methodsWe pursued our objectives by means of a quantitative panel analysis, building a longitudinal dataset with observations from countries in Europe, from 1 January to 30 September, and estimating the impact of school closure via feasible-generalised least-squares fixed effect and random effect estimators, and analysis of variance (ANOVA) mixed models.
resultsOur results show that having schools closed is effective in reducing the number of new cases. Countries that implement closure have fewer new COVID-19 cases than those that do not. This becomes a reality around 20 days after the implementation of the policy. Its efficacy continues to be detectable up to 100 days after implementation. The result is robust to controls for other forms of social distancing.
conclusionResults suggest that school closure is effective in reducing the number of people who are infected with COVID-19. Unlike what has been suggested in previous analyses or with regard to other diseases, its efficacy continues to be detectable up to 100 days after the introduction of the policy.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.