the socioeconomic effect of covid-19 pandemic on iranian children: the mediating role of parents’ mental health

Background: covid-19 has been troublesome for families due to its socio-economic changes worldwide. therefore, the present study aimed to investigate the socio-economic burden of covid-19 on children’s health in iran.methods: in the present cross-sectional study, the target population was 500 parents of children aged 5 to 18 years from 5 provinces of iran in 2021. the samples were randomly selected from different geographical regions of iran. the questionnaires on the socioeconomic burden of covid-19, general health, child health, and place of residence landscape were employed to collect the data. for data analysis, t-test, structural equation modeling (sem) were used in spss version 26 and amos version 26, respectively. results: the results indicated that based on determination coefficients of socio-economic burden of covid-19, the socioeconomic status of the parents and the settlement external perspective variable account for nearly 25% of the mental changes in parents. furthermore, the combined effects of covid-19’s socioeconomic burden and parents’ mental health accounted for 26% of the health changes observed in children. the socio-economic burden had a negative correlation with parents’ mental health (β=-0.383, p<0.001) and children’s health (β=-0.202, p=0.003). nevertheless, a positive association was found between socioeconomic status and parents’ mental health (β=0.138, p=0.014) on the one hand and the external settlement perspective with parents’ mental health (β=0.243, p<0.001), on the other hand. also, the parents’ mental health showed a positive correlation with children’s health (β=0.398, p<0.001).conclusions: the present findings revealed that the socio-economic status and mental health of parents are important determinants of children’s health; thus, health policymakers should prevent social economic inequalities during epidemics. also, they should provide optimal support to vulnerable families to avoid negative effects on children’s health.