Epidemics, Lockdown Measures and Vulnerable Populations: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review of the Evidence of Impacts on Mother and Child Health in Low- and Lower-Middle-Income Countries

Introduction

Prohibition of social gathering, trade and travelling restrictions, border closures, quarantines and curfews are some of the public health measures that have been used historically to contain the spread of infectious diseases. Cordons sanitaire – the deployment of physical barriers around towns and villages to restrict entrance – were implemented to stop the spread of bubonic plague, yellow fever and cholera in Europe since the 17th century.¹ The word quarantine comes from the 40-day isolation periods that were imposed on traders in Venice travelling from regions affected by the plague in the 14th century. More recently, such measures have been described as non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) and have been adopted as part of the response to epidemics of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) (2003), H1N1 influenza (2009), Ebola (2014) and, currently in the containment of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic.^2,3 The current pandemic has also seen the widespread adoption of the term ‘lockdown’ to describe those NPIs that involve mandatory restrictions on normal social and economic life that are applied indiscriminately to whole populations.⁴

Although such measures are effective at containing the spread of infectious diseases, they may also be harmful.⁵ They can cause significant disruption to social and economic life, impinge upon civil liberties and personal freedoms, and produce illness and direct harm. With COVID-19, where strict disease control measures have been implemented for prolonged periods of time, many concerns have been raised about the collateral damage or undesirable effects of these measures, notwithstanding their importance in containing the spread of the disease. Concerns include the social and economic harms of these measures.^6,7 Evidence of the unintended or harmful health effects of epidemic control measures include reports of increasing food insecurity, particularly for families with children in low-income settings, deteriorating mental health, poorer eating habits and a lowering of physical activity, as well as reducing access to and utilisation of healthcare services.^8-11 Disruption of livelihoods and of social determinants of health is also believed to carry a longer-term impact on population health.¹²

It has also been noted that such adverse effects are unevenly experienced between and within populations.¹³ On the one hand, low- and lower-middle-income countries (LLMICs) are widely believed will fare worse than high-income countries (HICs), given the more limited fiscal room for governments to provide welfare and economic support for the millions already on the breadline, and with housing conditions of millions of indigent households making some lockdown measures particularly challenging.¹⁴ On the other hand, poorer and marginalised population sub-groups are likely to be more exposed and vulnerable to the harms of these measures, such as informal workers, ethnic minorities, and people with no qualifications or low literacy.¹⁵ The well-being of women and children is also feared to be particularly at risk during the current COVID-19 epidemic, because of the suspension of essential services, school closures and potential of domestic violence from the imposed lockdowns.¹⁶

Although the current data suggest that many LLMICs may have been less directly affected by the virus, with lower rates of severe infections, possibly in connection to the different demographics and the lesser capacity of local systems to report cases, they are more vulnerable to the harms of lockdown measures, defined as those mandatory or voluntary measures taken to control travel and the environment to contain contagion during epidemics.^17-19 Either way, governments in LLMICs have a particular need to carefully assess and monitor the balance between the health protection provided by COVID-19 control measures, and the harms and collateral damage of those same measures, particularly as it affects vulnerable populations, including women and children. This is additionally important given that vaccine roll-out across LLMICs is likely to be delayed.

We set out to synthetise the quantitative and qualitative evidence on the health impacts on children and women in LLMICs of so-called lockdown measures associated with the major acute epidemics of the last 20 years. This review aims to contribute to current debates about the best way to minimise the harms associated with communicable disease control measures, with a particular focus on the needs of vulnerable populations in low-income settings.

Methods

Approach and Design of the Review

We conducted a mixed-methods systematic review synthesizing diverse types of knowledge (such as qualitative, quantitative and mixed-method evidence) with configurative (that is, not aggregative) purposes.^20-23 For reporting, we used the guidelines of the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) statement,²⁴ and prospectively submitted the systematic review protocol for registration on PROSPERO (CRD42020220324).

We drew from existing conceptualisations of the direct and indirect effects of lockdown measures used to control the transmission of epidemics to frame the review design as well as to identify the search terms for the health repercussions on women and children in low-income settings.^25,26 We also used a recently published framework for identifying the equity harms of epidemic-related interventions for vulnerable populations in low-income countries.¹³ A preliminary search of public health literature also helped in identifying both the short- and long-term impacts of such policies and informed the development of the search strategy and eligibility criteria.

Although the literature does not always specify which of the different types of lockdown measure carry a health impact, we drew from our previous work on this subject and focused on synthesising the effects of stay-at-home measures, restrictions on movement and trade, prohibition of mass gatherings, suspension of health and education services on the health of women and children.²⁷

Search Strategy

Seven scientific databases (PubMed; ISI Web of Science – Core Collection; Scopus; Cochrane Library; SciELO, Econ Lit, and PDQ-Evidence) were searched for, one more (ie, the PDQ-Evidence) than originally planned in our PROSPERO protocol. Altogether, these databases cover the mainstream health, public health, health systems, multidisciplinary, and economic literature. The full search strategies employed for each database are provided in Supplementary file 1. Database searches were conducted between 1st and 10th of November 2020, covering studies published no earlier than the year 2000 and with title and/or abstract available in English.

Besides database searches, snowballing searches (that is, citations tracking; authors tracking; references list consultation) were conducted over the articles selected through the database searches. Secondary searches also entailed searching websites and/or databases (for example, using key search terms) of the following outlets: the World Bank’s; the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s; Health Policy and Planning’s resources for epidemics.

Selection Criteria

We included primary research studies published in peer-reviewed journals, using quantitative, qualitative or mixed-methods, existing systematic reviews of primary research, original analyses of secondary data, including modelling studies, country-specific or cross-country reports, and cost-effectiveness studies. We excluded: unpublished study reports, papers published in non-peer-reviewed journals, commentaries and opinion pieces, and non-systematic reviews. The population of interest was children (<18) and women in LLMICs as per the World Bank’s 2021 income classification.²⁸

We included impacts and exposure to lockdown measures taken to prevent or contain epidemic or pandemic events between 2000 and 2020 such as COVID-19, Ebola, SARS, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), Zika, Swine flu, and Avian flu. We only included evidence related to the list of 29 low-income and 50 lower-middle-income countries as defined by the World Bank in 2021.²⁸ Drawing from the classification from a recent Cochrane Review on the subject,¹⁹ the following measures were considered: (a) Geographic containment policies for example, border closures, international travelling bans; in-country travelling restrictions; (b) Closures and prohibitions (such as closures of schools; prohibitions of gatherings; closures of non-essential shops and businesses; restrictions of gatherings and opening hours in markets and worship venues); (c) Home confinement measures (such as: advise to stay at home; curfews); (d) Suspension of services (such as: immunisation campaigns; restrictions in accessing health facilities; restriction in accessing welfare services; suspension in the provision of healthcare services like check-up, screening, treatments and preventive services) (Table 1).

The effects and outcomes of interest included those related to mental health, nutrition; physical activity, chronic, maternal or neonatal conditions and illnesses, interpersonal violence, children’s learning and development, poverty and social vulnerability. These criteria were applied both to the Level 1 (titles-and-abstract) and Level 2 (full-text) screenings.

Data Collection and Risk of Bias Assessment

The database searches were conducted by TSJ. The initial Level 1 screening was conducted by GR to identify sources that may be of relevance to our study objectives. Level 2 screening was conducted by KD and AYO, with each reviewer independently looking at the abstract and full text to assess whether the source met the inclusion criteria. The Level 2 reviewers returned three possible decisions: ‘included,’ ‘excluded’ or for ‘Uncertain: seek further information.’ For each source that was excluded, the reviewers recorded a reason from related to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. For each source that was judged as ‘seek further information,’ a third reviewer (GR) made an independent assessment regarding whether the sources should be included.

Where studies met the eligibility criteria, their methods’ quality was also appraised using the Joanne Briggs Institute’s critical appraisal tools covering 12 different types of study designs.²⁹ The reviewers who performed the Level 2 screenings also performed this assessment, using one checklist per paper, appropriate for the study design. This process was instrumental to exclude any papers with important methodological shortcomings from the synthesis, as recommended by the reviewers after completing the appraisal checklists, and further appraised by GR, extensive to the whole team as necessary. All the methodological shortcomings identified through this process were presented in either the results or limitations sections.

Data Extraction and Analysis

Every paper passing the Level 2 screening and quality appraisal was subject to data extraction. Data extraction was split between GR, KD and AO. The research team developed an original data extraction table and coding structure addressing the paper’s geographic and demographic coverage, as well as their methodological features (eg, study design, type of evidence, sampling, outcomes assessed, analytical methods, variables controlled for). Key findings on the outcome measures, in turn, were extracted for free text boxes. Descriptive statistics (eg, counts, rates) were applied to describe the outcomes of the papers included. In turn, the findings on the impact of the lockdown measures were tabulated per type of measure, per population covered (ie, children and women), before being narratively summarized. The bibliographic references were managed in Endnote and Zotero software; characteristics of each studies and respective key findings were organised in an Excel database and analysed through pivot dynamic tables.

In the analytical process within each category of impact, we applied a ‘data-based convergent synthesis design,’ with all types of data (ie, quantitative and qualitative) synthesized under the same method, this time narratively.^20,22,23

Results

Figure 1 presents the PRISMA flowchart of the review. From 880 records initially detected (751 after duplicates were removed), 63 full texts were deemed eligible, of which 46 papers were finally included. Supplementary file 2 provides a list of the papers finally included. Supplementary file 3 provides the finalised PRISMA checklist. Supplementary file 4 provides the list of papers excluded after full-text review, along with the reasons for their exclusion. Finally, Supplementary file 5 provides the data extraction forms and quality appraisals.

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Figure. PRISMA Flowchart for the Systematic Review. Abbreviations: PRISMA, Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses; LMIC, low- and middle-income country.

Scope of the Evidence Included

Forty-six research papers, all published between 2015 and 2020, met the inclusion criteria. Of these, 31 focused on the recent COVID-19 pandemic, and 15 on the 2014-2015 Ebola epidemic in West Africa (Table 2). The papers covered 17 countries across 3 continents. There were no relevant papers covering the SARS, Zika, MERS, Swine flu or Avian flu epidemics. Of the papers, 16 (34.8%) were based on primary surveys, 11 reported on modelling exercises, 6 were based on an analysis of routinely collected surveillance and healthcare utilisation data, 4 were based on qualitative research, 4 used mixed-methods, 2 reported on a time-series analysis and there was one economic evaluation.

Table 3 summarises the evidence and shows that the disruption in the provision of routine services was the most common health impact identified in 14 of our papers, leading in four cases to the identification of potential deaths.^30-33 Lockdown’s impact on the utilisation of healthcare services was the subject of eight of the papers, particularly for those referring to the Ebola epidemic.^34-36 Evidence of mental health impacts from lockdown measures was also discussed in eight papers,^37,38 followed by social vulnerability effects including increase in poverty levels, reduced income or livelihood was covered in six papers.^39,40 The rest of the papers focussed on altered dietary patterns, nutrition and lack of physical exercise,⁴¹ domestic violence,⁴² and disrupted sleeping patterns among children and adults.⁴³

Unfortunately, 16 of the papers did not specify the specific lockdown measure causing health impacts, referring only to the application of ‘generic lockdown’ or ‘quarantine measures’ (see for example,^38,44,45). Others (16) referred specifically to the suspension of healthcare services implemented to contain the spread of epidemics.^46-48 Seven studies addressed the effects of ‘Stay at home’ policies (for example,^37,49), three the restrictions on trade and business,^50-52 two mentioned school closures,^53,54 and one social distancing.³³

We present in the following sections the extracted evidence below, from the categories of impact for which richer material was found, to the ones subject of comparatively fewer papers (reduced utilisation of healthcare; lockdown-related loss of lives; impact on mental health, and; impact on social vulnerability). Within each category we describe and analyse the link between impacts and specific lockdown measures, type of evidence, and geographical focus of the studies. We also provide a full summary of the evidence from each paper in Table 4.

Impact on Utilisation of Mother and Child Services

Six studies reported on the effects of mother and child services being disrupted in the course of both the Ebola and COVID-19 epidemics. Takahashi and colleagues’ modelling study on reduced measles vaccination rates in Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone due to the Ebola epidemic projected that concluded that there would be up to 1 129 376 children unvaccinated for measles after 18 months of the start from the epidemic.⁶⁴

Delamou and colleagues’ retrospective observational study in Guinea found that most maternal and child health service indicators significantly worsened during the 2014 Ebola virus disease epidemic in 2014.⁶⁸ The most significant reductions were noted for polio and tuberculosis vaccinations at –3594 (P < .001) and –3048 (P = .04) administered, respectively. Fewer institutional deliveries, and fewer pregnant women attended at least one antenatal care visit or at least three antenatal care visits per month (P < .001 for all).

A prospective observational study by Kc et al on the effects of the COVID-19 epidemic in Nepal found that during lockdown the institutional neonatal mortality rate increased from 13 per 1000 livebirths to 40 per 1000 livebirths (P = .002); the average weekly reduction in institutional births during lockdown was 7.4%, with a total decrease of 52.4% by the end of lockdown.⁶⁹ In terms of quality of care, intrapartum foetal heart rate monitoring decreased by 13·4% and breastfeeding by 3·5%. The proportion of women who had a complication during childbirth increased from 6.7% before lockdown to 8.7% during lockdown (P = .01). The proportion of women who had caesarean section increased from 24.5% before lockdown to 26.2% during lockdown (P = .007).

Facing the prospects of disruption of vaccination services during lockdowns, Abbas and colleagues’ risk-benefit analysis derived from their modelling suggested that the benefit of continuing with routine childhood immunisation programmes in all 54 African countries would outweigh the risk of COVID-19 infection associated with vaccination clinic visits.⁶⁵ They found that for every excess COVID-19 death attributable to infections acquired during routine vaccination clinic visits, there would be an estimated 84 deaths in children up to 5 years of age due to reduced childhood immunisation.

There is also evidence that fear of acquiring infection from health facilities can reduce utilisation, and Ly et al detected a 30% decreased odds of institutional birth deliveries after the start of Ebola epidemic in a rural Liberian county despite the relatively few cases.³⁴ The odds of facility-based delivery were 41% lower among women who reported a belief that Ebola was or may be transmitted in health facilities, but not significantly lower among women who reported believing that Ebola was not transmitted in health facilities.

Finally, Quaglio and colleagues’ analysis of routine surveillance and utilisation data in a rural district in Sierra Leone showed statistically significant differences in trends between pre-Ebola versus post-Ebola for paediatric admissions, maternal admissions, major direct obstetric complications, and institutional deliveries.³⁶

Loss of Lives Due to Lockdown Measures

Our review also revealed evidence that lockdown measures result in excess mortality. A modelling study on the potential effects of disruption to HIV programmes caused by COVID-19 found that, according to different scenarios (ranging from 20% to 100% disruption levels), there could be between 92 000 and 956 000 excess deaths in sub-Saharan Africa in one year, with a substantial proportion of expecting mothers.³² Interruption of anti-retroviral treatment would increase mother-to-child transmission of HIV by approximately 1.6 times, with a similar increase of mortality for new-borns.

Another modelling study on the effects of COVID-19-related lockdown measures in Uganda predicted a decline of 75% in the reporting of new AIDS cases and initiation of anti-retroviral therapy (ART), resulting in a loss of 475 319 disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to disruption of treatment and detection of new cases; and different scenarios of mortality (from 3000 to 31 000), and DALYs lost to malaria (most of them for children), ranging from 257 000 to 2 450 000.³³ The same study reported a 29% (28 939) reduction in monthly facility deliveries recorded by the Ministry of Health compared with January 2020, a reduction of 28% with respect to the 12-month average for 2019. Over the same period, an 82% increase in maternal deaths was recorded (from 92 to 167 women, in absolute terms), an increase of 87% over the 12-month 2019 average of 89.5. An excess 486 deaths are predicted for a 6-month period, incurring a loss of 31 343 DALYs.

Impact on Mental Health

The impact of lockdowns measures on mental health was also an important topic highlighted by our review. A survey of 1404 adults in Bangladesh using the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) found that 51.9% of adults suffered from poor mental health during the first 4 months of the COVID-19 epidemic.^37,70 Participants involved in business had poorer mental health compared to government employees (decreased by 5.9 units, P = .01), healthcare workers (by 5, P ≤ .001), and employees of private companies (by 3.3, P = .02). Depression seemed to disproportionally affect women - 57.2% of female participants resulted in poor mental health (WEMWBS score ≤42), whereas for males it was at 48.9% (P = .002). Furthermore, it was found that unmarried women recorded higher well-being scores than the married women (by 3.31, P < .001).

Similar results were reported from ‘The COVID-19 Lockdown (COLD) Study’ in India, according to which the prevalence of depression among adults was 30.5%, anxiety was reported by 22.4% participants, followed by stress, seen in 10.8% of respondents. In the third week of lockdown the prevalence of depression (37.8% versus 23.4%; P < .001), anxiety (26.6% versus 18.2%; P < .001) and stress (12.2% versus 9.3%; P = .045) was reported to be significantly higher in comparison to the second week.³⁸ In this study women were also more likely to suffer from all forms of psychological symptoms (depression, anxiety and stress); a significantly higher proportion of women reported higher levels of mild to severe depression (P = .002), anxiety (P = .002) and stress (P < .001) as compared to the men.

A worldwide multicentre study also found that COVID-19-related home confinement negatively impacts social participation and life satisfaction as measured by the SSPQL (Short Social Participation Questionnaire-Lockdowns), a short modified questionnaire to assess social participation before and during a lockdown period on the basis of reported participation in 18 types of social activities.⁷² Among the study participants, the total score of SSPQL score decreased significantly by 42% “during” confinement compared to “before” home confinement (t = 69.2, P < .001, d = 2.1). Women comprised 53.8% of the overall study sample.

Another online cross-sectional study conducted between April and May 2020 in Bangladesh showed that 43% of children had subthreshold mental health disturbances (mean depression: 2.8, anxiety: 2, and sleeping disorder: 1); 30.5% had mild disturbances (mean depression score of 8.9, anxiety: 4.9, and sleeping disorder: 3); 19.3% suffered from moderate disturbances (mean depression:15.9, anxiety: 9.2, and sleeping: 6), and; 7.2% suffered from severe disturbances (mean depression score of: 25.2, anxiety: 13.4, and sleeping disorder: 8).⁵³

Changes in Dietary Patterns, Sleeping and Domestic Violence

The evidence on how lockdown measures affect people’s health-related behaviour is more heterogeneous.

A qualitative study in Sierra Leone highlighted the main pathways by which lockdown measures implemented during the Ebola epidemic impacted on child nutrition, including through reduced availability of milk formula in shops, altered infant and young child feeding practices, reduced monitoring of growth and detection of malnutrition, and restrictions in the ability of people to forage for food.⁴¹ The study also described how these effects of lockdown were mediated by other factors including mistrust between the government and communities. Similar findings about the impact of lockdown measures on child nutrition were found in a consensus building exercise on feeding practices during Ebola with stakeholders in Sierra Leone and Guinea by the same authors.⁴⁴

Preliminary results from a worldwide online survey on eating and physical activity during the COVID-19 pandemic showed that home confinement measures reduced physical activity intensity levels, and increased daily sitting time from 5 to 8 hours per day (P > .001).⁴⁹ Food consumption patterns, including the type of food consumed, the frequency of binge eating and snacking between meals, and the number of main meals, were found to be less healthy during confinement. The frequency of binge drinking, however, was reported to have decreased significantly.

An online survey on the impact of COVID-19 home confinement measures on children’s sleeping patterns and screen time in India revealed that while 42.9% of respondents experienced deeper sleep during lockdown, 31.4% experienced more discontinuous sleep during the lockdown phase.⁴³ Higher frequencies of napping during the day were also recorded among participants (25.7%). However, screen exposure did not change significantly among children before and during lockdown – with the exception of the comparison between week-day usage.

Finally, from the domestic violence perspective, an interrupted time series analysis study among households participating in a Randomised Controlled trial in Bangladesh found that symptoms of depression increased among women during lockdown (10, 3–17; 6-point increase, in the interquartile range 0–11 scale); P < .001; emotional violence increased with respect to baseline, including insults (initially reported by 19.9% of participants) for which 68.4% reported an increase, humiliation (66.0% of 191 reported an increase), and intimidation (68.7%) of 291 reported an increase.⁷⁰ Physical violence (eg, being slapped or having something thrown at them) was initially reported by 6.5%, and 56% reported an increase during lockdown. Sexual violence was less common (3.0%), but of those affected, 33 (50.8%) reported an increase since the lockdown. Along the same lines, another piece of research among Tunisian women found that during the 2020 COVID-19 confinement more than half of the participants (57.3%) reported extremely severe distress symptoms, as per the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scales assessment tool; violence against women also was reported to have increased significantly during the lockdown (from 4.4% to 14.8%; P < .001).⁴² Psychological abuse was the most frequent type of violence (96%). Women who had experienced abuse before the lockdown were at an increased risk of violence during lockdown (odds ratio = 19.3 [8.7-43.0]).

Impact on Social Vulnerability

Six papers that presented evidence on the impact of COVID-19-related lockdown measures on livelihoods and poverty levels (Table 3). A World Development paper used a modelling methodology to forecast that the percentage of people living under $1.90 a day would increase worldwide from 13.1% in 2019, to about 13.8% in 2020 and 14.5% by 2021 as a result of the policies adopted to contain the COVID-19 epidemic.³⁹ A survey of smallholder farmers in Haryana and Odisha states designed to assess the impacts of India’s national lockdown on farmers’ income and food security found that, because of the shortages of seasonal labourers linked to travel restrictions, 41%-80% of farmers faced steeper labour costs to harvest. Because of the closures of the local markets, 61%-74% responded having had to store their harvest and sell in the future.⁵² No difference in access to food was reported before and after the lockdowns.

From their interviews of 40 self-employed women in Zambia, Mathew et al relate that 100% of the research participants experienced inadequate food supplies as a result of closing down of their self-run businesses. All the research participants also reported a sense of hopelessness about being able to revive their business due to having spent their savings during the lockdown or because of a loss of all their perishable goods at the start of the lockdown.⁷⁶

In the same vein, Aura and colleagues’ survey of the Great Lakes’ fishing communities in Kenya assessed the consequences of COVID-19 pandemic on fish capture and trade.⁵⁰ They concluded that the cessation of movement to cities where the main fish markets are located, curfews and social distancing, affected fishing trips and duration, disrupted the fish value chain, diminished trade, and negatively affected the livelihoods of fishermen and fisherwomen.

A modelling study on food security for vulnerable groups in Bangladesh estimated that under the assumption that 50% of the country’s daily wage workers were not allowed to work during lockdown, a one-day complete lockdown would generate $64.2 million worth of losses to the country’s economy.⁷⁵ The study also estimated that income support of around US$1 per day per household would be needed to ensure basic food security for daily wage-based worker households.

Another study drawing from participants in a randomised controlled trial of iron supplementation in children (the BRISC trial – Benefits and risks of iron interventions in children) in Bangladesh found a reduction in work for the father or other family members in 96.0% (n = 2321) of the families in the sample. Median monthly income fell from US$212 at baseline to $59 during lockdown.⁷⁰ While only 0.2% (5) of families lived below the income poverty line of $1.90 per day at baseline, this figure increased to 47.3% (P < .001) during the lockdown.

Discussion

This review found substantial and diverse evidence of the health impacts of lockdown measures on women and children from two distinct epidemics, reflecting a wide range of different impacts and related mechanisms. The data on the decrease of utilisation of health services seemed convincing, with studies from the COVID-19 and Ebola lockdowns showing plummeting immunisation rates and faltering use of maternal and perinatal services. Modelling work has linked such effects to an increase in the number of premature deaths in LLMICs. The negative impact of lockdown measures on the mental health of children and women also seems well-established, with home confinement measures associated with rises in levels of depression and anxiety, and a lowering of feelings of life satisfaction.

We also found evidence of socio-economic vulnerability increasing with lockdown measures as livelihoods were disrupted and poverty levels increased amid trade restrictions and bans, particularly for women-led households. Some evidence was also uncovered of rises in domestic violence during home confinement, although pre-existing violent relations appear to play a role in the occurrence of new cases.

This review also identified a general paucity of research on the impact of lockdown measures, as we only found evidence related to the Ebola and COVID-19 epidemics. This may be because the terms ‘lockdown’ and ‘non-pharmaceutical intervention’ are relatively recent, and because research in this area has traditionally been dominated by clinical and epidemiology health specialists focussing on the direct impacts of epidemics.⁷⁷ It is however noteworthy that evidence was found from these two epidemics on the health impacts on children and women from the associated lockdown restrictions. We did not find much on the effects of school closures or other social determinants on the health of women and children either, even though also non-health specific databases were also searched. This may be in part explained by the complexity of disentangling these complex relations and associations, but also by the timing of our search, as it will take time for such macro effects to produce an impact on the health of vulnerable populations.⁷⁸

The evidence uncovered was very heterogeneous and of diverse quality, and with a notable exception, a lack of large-scale, representative studies was noticeable.⁶⁹ This is in part due to restrictions on collection of primary data, and a reliance on online surveys that do not provide representative samples in LLMICs contexts. As measures to contain the COVID-19 epidemic take their toll, it is likely that new studies on their impact will be carried out, and an attempt should be made to monitor and document the production of new and stronger evidence beyond the one reviewed here. In the absence of alternatives, modelling methods have taken prominence in the analysis of the projected effects of the current epidemic, and it is out for debate whether there is enough good quality empirical data to feed into the models to produce accurate predictions.

Another methodological challenge of this review was that a detailed description of the ‘lockdown measures’ being implemented was not always clearly provided by the studies retrieved. As such, it was not always possible to determine which communicable disease control measures were impacting on women and children, and through which pathways. Often the ‘lockdown measures’ were vaguely defined or used as a collective term for a broad range of restrictions designed to contain epidemic.²⁷ Future research needs to include clearer definitions of which aspects of lockdown are under investigation.

This issue also limited the understanding of the mechanisms through which lockdown measures impact on health. For example, how the suspension of healthcare services during an epidemic impacts on healthcare utilization was not always fully explored in the studies we reviewed. For example, while a supply-side effect on utilisation is to be expected when providers suspend their services, some evidence from the Ebola epidemic in West Africa,^34,48 and COVID-19 in Nepal,⁶⁹ suggests that the suspension of services carries a longer-term effect on the demand-side too, as patients will keep avoiding health providers for fear of contagion even when services resume. Whether these are supply or demand-side effects matters, as the policy interventions needed to counterbalance low utilisation would differ accordingly.⁷⁹

Our review finds emerging evidence that lockdown measures have a disproportionate impact on vulnerable groups such as women and children in LLMICs. Evidence from the lockdown measures in West Africa suggests some pattern of impacts, as interruption of services would be responsible for the largest share of health effects on vulnerable groups.^34,48,64 This would be consistent with evidence that poorer individuals have lower levels of healthcare utilisation compared to other population groups, and are among the first to stop seeking care when barriers are created to their access.⁸⁰ Suspending basic primary healthcare services during an epidemic would therefore have a disproportionate, long-term effect on women and children, particularly when cost-effective immunization programmes and institutional childbirth strategies are considered.^69,81 As the consequences of lockdowns appear to be different for HICs and upper middle-income countries, this highlights the importance of monitoring the evidence in low-income settings, and consider that even in HICs, socioeconomic differences can amplify the negative impact of restrictive lockdown measures on the most sensitive sectors.⁸²

Our review emphasises that preliminary evidence points to very divergent impacts for different social groups with respect to changes on food and nutrition, with wealthier households reporting over-eating, snacking and binge drinking, an experience that is in contrast to poorer households that face increased food insecurity.^44,83 Until effective treatments or vaccines are made widely available in LLMICs, lockdown restrictions are likely to remain in place at least during the peak of epidemics.⁸⁴ It will be essential to gauge their impacts on specific vulnerable groups with more precision to understand when and how to intervene to avoid long-lasting damage.

Ultimately, our analysis of the available evidence shows that the consequences of epidemic-related lockdown measures can be greater than expected for voiceless, vulnerable groups in LLMICs. Measures successfully applied in some high-income contexts may not necessarily work in LLMICs, and it will be critical for local governments to constantly monitor the balance of the trade-offs between the imperative of containing epidemics, and the inevitable damage that these policies leave behind. However, the range of both predictable and unintended consequences of lockdowns on women’s and child health presents a significant challenge to policy makers. The evidence is clear that lockdown policies need to be accompanied with other measures designed to mitigate these impacts; prioritisation of competing health instances will be reliant on future high-quality research to inform responses to potential future waves of COVID-19 or new infectious disease outbreaks.

The following limitations apply to this review. The searches were conducted in late 2020, as COVID-19 publications continue to be published and fresh evidence is produced at an unprecedented rate, faster than our ability to process the information from continuous updates. Therefore, there is clearly an opportunity for continuous review updates for this area of lockdown measure impacts, such as those allowed by living systematic review methodologies⁸⁵ used in other COVID-19 topics.⁸⁶ Our searches only covered articles with titles and/or abstracts in the English language, which may have reduced access to evidence from low-income countries. Our initial database searches did not include pre-print servers such as medRxiv. Although at least two reviewers were always involved in each stage of the review, the second reviewer was mostly used in a verification role, rather than as an independent reviewer, to accelerate the review process. However, no crucial step was missed in conducting the review (eg, skipping quality assessments, focus in one sole or a few databases, neglecting snowballing searches), meaning that our review process was consistent with that of a fully-fledged mixed-methods systematic review.²⁰ Although we did conduct quality assessments of the included papers for exclusion purposes and for highlighting existing methodological weaknesses, we did not use this procedure to rank the existing evidence according to its quality, as per the definitions of the Joanna Briggs Institute checklists.²⁹ Such checklists were considered adequate as our review had a large and exploratory scope, a configurative purpose, and involved a narrative, nuanced synthesis rather than meta-analyses.

Conclusion

Lockdown measures have been put in places for centuries to contain epidemics worldwide, but their consequences are largely unknown, particularly for the health of vulnerable populations. We looked at the evidence on impacts of lockdown measures on the health of women and children in LLMICs, to provide an evidence base for governments to weight costs and benefits of such measures. Seven scientific databases were searched for research papers from the 2000-2020 period reporting on lockdowns’ impacts on mental health, nutrition, utilisation of services, exposure to interpersonal violence, increased poverty and social vulnerability. The Joanne Briggs Institute’s critical appraisal tools and the PRISMA guidelines were used for assessing the quality of the studies and for reporting.

We identified 46 research papers meeting the inclusion criteria, all focussing on the two most recent COVID-19 and Ebola epidemics. The evidence on the decrease of utilisation of health services showed plummeting immunisation rates and faltering use of maternal and perinatal services, which was linked to a growth of premature deaths. Lockdowns’ impact on mental health of children and women appeared to be well-established, with stay-at-home measures associated with surges in depression, anxiety and low life satisfaction. The evidence suggests that vulnerability may be compounded by lockdowns, as livelihoods are disrupted, and poverty levels increase. We concluded that epidemic-related lockdown measures do carry unintended consequences for the health of women and children in LLMIC settings; governments will need to ponder the trade-offs of such measures and consider policies to mitigate the impacts for the most vulnerable.

Ethical issues

Not applicable.

Competing interests

Authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Authors’ contributions

GR contributed to designing the review, extracting the evidence, and drafted the manuscript. TSJ contributed to designing the review and revised the manuscript. KD contributed to designing the review, extracting the evidence, and revised the manuscript. AYO contributed to extracting the evidence and reviewing the manuscript. DMC contributed to designing the review and reviewing the manuscript.

Supplementary files

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