The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health care, but the extent to which it has changed access to preventive primary care for young children (from birth to <6 years old) remains unclear. Primary care for young children, which involves regularly scheduled screening visits with primary care providers as outlined by evidence-informed guidelines such as the Rourke Baby Record and the ABCdaire, is fundamental for early detection and management of various issues.
For this longitudinal cohort study, we will be accessing electronic medical records (EMR) of patients aged 0-5 from the Primary Care Ontario Practice-based Learning and Research (POPLAR) Network in Ontario. Our objectives are to determine the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on attendance to primary care visits and various developmental outcomes for young children between the pre-COVID era (March 2015-March 2020) and the COVID era (March 2020-today).
Additionally, we are recruiting primary care providers/administrators and parents/caregivers of young children from Ontario and Quebec to complete an online survey (see homepage) about primary care programs or services that helped them deliver/access primary care for young children during the pandemic. Follow-up interviews will be conducted to gain more detail about why these primary care programs/services were successful and how they might be implemented to improve delivery and access to primary care for young children in the future.
Research Components
Scoping Review
We are conducting a comprehensive review of the literature to identify what knowledge currently exists and what gaps remain with regards to the impacts of COVID-19 on preventive primary care outcomes in children 0-5 years old. This will serve as a foundational piece for all the other components of our research project.
EMR Data Analysis
We are conducting several quantitative analyses to discover patterns or changes from the five years pre-COVID (March 2015-March 2020) compared to during COVID (March 2020-today) on frequency of well child visits and various child health outcomes. We are also conducting natural language processing (a type of artificial intelligence that allows computers to understand human languages) to look through unstructured fields in the EMRs (e.g., chart notes) and find information relating to our key outcomes.
Survey & Interviews
As indicated on our homepage, we are conducting a brief online survey to learn about innovative primary care programs or services that helped with delivery and access to primary care for young children during COVID-19. We will also be interviewing primary care providers/administrators and parents/caregivers of young children across Ontario and Quebec to ask more detailed questions about why and how those programs or services were helpful.