Revisiting child and adolescent health in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals
Zulfiqar A Bhutta, Kathryn M. Yount, Quique Bassat, Artur A. Arikainen
Abstract
The year 2020-five years since 189 countries signed the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)-has been consumed by the global response to COVID-19. To date, this pandemic has resulted in over 38 million cases and well over a million deaths One collateral effect of COVID-19 has been the setting aside of many SDGs and efforts to track progress towards them. Attention to children during the pandemic has concentrated on school closures, food insecurity, and access to care within health systems taxed by COVID-19 mitigation and response efforts [2]. The situation of child and adolescent health before COVID-19, and consequences of the pandemic on specific health targets for SDG 3, therefore deserve attention.