RESEARCH
SBU Study on COVID Orphans Reaches STAT Madness Sweet Sixteen
For the first time in the six-year history of the STAT Madness competition, a Stony Brook University Renaissance School of Medicine study has advanced to the third round.
“COVID Orphans,” a study led by Rachel Kidman of the Family, Population and Preventive Medicine Program in Public Health, defeated the Allen Institute of Brain Science and is now facing the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the “Sweet Sixteen.”
Kidman’s research is the first to highlight the large number of children orphaned by COVID-19, using demographic modeling to estimate the number of children who have lost a parent during the pandemic. The researchers concluded that 37,300 children under age 18 had lost at least one parent as of February 2021, and that Black children were disproportionately affected, comprising 14% of children in the U.S. but 20% of those who had lost a parent to COVID. This finding, highlighted in many press pieces over the past year, makes it clear that parentally bereaved children will need targeted support in the years ahead.
Round three voting is underway and will continue through Sunday, March 20, at 11:59 pm. You can vote daily and frequently to support Stony Brook.
Stony Brook had two studies reach the second round of voting. “Unraveling Bacterial Structure,” a study by David Thanassi of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology, narrowly lost to Brigham and Women’s Hospital.