The Chief Medical Officers (CMOs) of England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales used research based on Understanding Society data as a ‘key input’ for their advice on vaccinating 12-15-year-olds against Covid.
The letter to Sajid Javid, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, follows advice from the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) at the beginning of September that “the benefits from vaccination [for 12-15-year-olds] are marginally greater than the potential known harms” – but the JCVI added at the time that it was not within its remit to consider “wider societal impacts, including educational benefits”. As a result, the Health Secretary asked the CMOs to “consider the matter from a broader perspective”.
The CMOs consulted bodies such as the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, the Royal College of General Practice, and the Faculty of Public Health – and examined data from the Office for National Statistics, and “published data on the impact of COVID-19 on education”.
They cited School closures and children’s emotional and behavioural difficulties, published by the Institute for Social and Economic Research in March 2021, as one of their ‘key inputs’. The research used data from Understanding Society’s main survey, as well as our COVID-19 survey, to track how children’s mental health had changed over the previous three years.
The report, by Jo Blanden (University of Surrey), Claire Crawford (University of Birmingham), Birgitta Rabe and Laura Fumagalli (both at the Institute for Social and Economic Research at the University of Essex), found:
- a significant rise in emotional and behavioural difficulties among primary school children following the 2020 spring and summer term school closures
- a rise that was greater for children who were not prioritised to return to school for six weeks before the summer holiday
- a slight improvement in wellbeing once schools reopened in September, but not to pre-pandemic levels
- that the gap between those who missed out on more vs. less time in school during the summer term remained stubbornly wide.
The CMOs’ advice says the “likely benefits of reducing educational disruption, and the consequent reduction in public health harm from educational disruption, on balance provide sufficient extra advantage … to recommend in favour of vaccinating this group.”
Read the correspondence between the Chief Medical Officers and the Health Secretary
Read the original research from the Institute for Social and Economic Research
Covid 19EducationHealth and wellbeing
