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Public Health

COVID-19 and School Closures

Educational Objective
To understand how the short and long terms risks involved when discussing the continued closure or reopening schools

1 Credit CME

JAMA

Published Online: July 29, 2020

Editorial

Article Information and Disclosures

Julie M. Donohue, PhD¹;

Elizabeth Miller, MD, PhD²

Author Affiliations

¹Department of Health Policy and Management, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
²Division of Adolescent and Young Adult Medicine, UPMC Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

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To mitigate the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), US states enacted a suite of nonpharmaceutical interventions. School closures were among the most consistently applied of these interventions. Over a 10-day period in March, all 50 US states closed kindergarten-grade 12 schools and childcare centers; nearly all colleges and universities followed suit. These closures were unprecedented in scope, affecting 21 million children in childcare, 57 million students in kindergarten-grade 12, and 20 million college and university students.

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Article Information

Corresponding Author: Julie M. Donohue, PhD, Department of Health Policy and Management, Graduate School of Public Health, University of Pittsburgh, 130 DeSoto St, Crabtree Hall A635, Pittsburgh, PA 15261 (jdonohue@pitt.edu).

Published Online: July 29, 2020. doi:10.1001/jama.2020.13092

Conflict of Interest Disclosures: None reported.

References

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Psacharopoulous G , Patrinos H , Collis V , Vegas E . The COVID-19 cost of school closures. Accessed July 22, 2020. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/education-plus-development/2020/04/29/the-covid-19-cost-of-school-closures/

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AMA CME Accreditation Information

Credit Designation Statement: The American Medical Association designates this Journal-based CME activity activity for a maximum of 1.00  AMA PRA Category 1 Credit(s)™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

Successful completion of this CME activity, which includes participation in the evaluation component, enables the participant to earn up to:

1.00 Medical Knowledge MOC points in the American Board of Internal Medicine's (ABIM) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;;
1.00 Self-Assessment points in the American Board of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery’s (ABOHNS) Continuing Certification program;
1.00 MOC points in the American Board of Pediatrics’ (ABP) Maintenance of Certification (MOC) program;
1.00 Lifelong Learning points in the American Board of Pathology’s (ABPath) Continuing Certification program; and
1.00 credit toward the CME [and Self-Assessment requirements] of the American Board of Surgery’s Continuous Certification program

It is the CME activity provider's responsibility to submit participant completion information to ACCME for the purpose of granting MOC credit.