Loneliness and lack of social well-being are associated with adverse health outcomes and have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Smartphone communication data have been suggested to help monitor loneliness, but this requires further evidence. We investigated the informative value of smartphone communication app data for predicting subjective loneliness and social well-being in a sample of 364 participants ranging from 18 to 78 years of age (52.2% female; mean age = 42.54, SD = 13.22) derived from the CORONA HEALTH APP study from July to December 2020 in Germany. The participants experienced relatively high levels of loneliness and low social well-being during the time period characterized by the COVID-19 pandemic. Apart from positive associations with phone call use times, smartphone communication app use was associated with social well-being and loneliness only when considering the age of participants. Younger participants with higher use times tended to report less social well-being and higher loneliness, while the opposite association was found for older adults. Thus, the informative value of smartphone communication use time was rather small and became evident only in consideration of age. The results highlight the need for further investigations and the need to address several limitations in order to draw conclusions at the population level.

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Background The well-being of persons with overweight and obesity, in particular of children and adolescents, may be impaired. The present study investigates the health-related quality of life (HRQoL) of girls and boys with overweight and obesity living in Germany as compared to those of normal-weight, while taking a selection of relevant determinants of HRQoL into account. Methods The sample comprises 1771 children and adolescents aged 11 to 17 years that took part in the cross-sectional German Health Interview and Examination Survey for Children and Adolescents (KIGGS Wave 2, 2014–2017). Sex-and age-specific BMI (kg/m2) percentiles were utilized to classify overweight and obesity. HRQoL was measured with the KIDSCREEN-27 questionnaire, which gathers detailed information about the five dimensions physical and psychological well-being, well-being regarding peers (i.e., social acceptance), parents (i.e., autonomy) and within the school environment. Multiple regression analyses were performed with HRQoL dimensions as outcomes to test for differences between children and adolescents with normal-weight vs. those with overweight and vs. those with obesity, separately for girls and boys. In a next step, age, physical activity, media consumption, social support and self-efficacy were considered as potential confounders in the analyses. Results 18.7% of the children and adolescents under study were affected by overweight and among them 8.0% by obesity. After adjusting for potential confounders, overweight and obesity were associated with lower physical well-being as compared to normal weight in both sexes (boys with overweight: standardized beta [β] = −.14, standard error [SE] = .03, p < .001, and obesity: β = −.16, SE = .03, p < .001; girls with overweight: β = −.09, SE = .04, p = .011, and obesity: β = −.11, SE = .03, p = .003). Results moreover suggest lower levels of psychological (β = −.10, SE = .04, p = .002) and parent-related well-being (β = −.08, SE = .04, p = .036) of boys with obesity as compared to normal-weight peers. Conclusion HRQoL of German children and adolescents with overweight and obesity is impaired according to physical well-being in general, while psychological and parent-related well-being is particularly affected in boys. Public health approaches should therefore promote children and adolescents with overweight and obesity by improving diverse facets of HRQoL as well as relevant associated factors (i.e., media consumption, self-efficacy) in general and in boys in particular.

The development of preschoolers' language skills is influenced by literacy environments and individual differences in storybook exposure. Extant research is limited as most studies (a) investigate the effects on lower level language (LLL; e.g., vocabulary, grammar), but not the effects on higher level language (HLL; e.g., comprehension monitoring, narrative comprehension), and (b) focus on shared reading in the home literacy environment (HLE), but not on the child care literacy environment (CCLE) and the child as active literacy agent. We addressed these two gaps. First, we investigated the contributions of the HLE and the CCLE to the storybook exposure of 201 German preschoolers (M Age = 5; 5 years). A multilevel model showed that parents' storybook exposure was the most important predictor of children's storybook exposure. By contrast, child care workers' storybook exposure was not a significant predictor. Second, we explored the unique contributions of HLE, CCLE, and preschoolers' storybook exposure to LLL and HLL skills. Multilevel models showed that children's storybook exposure explained unique variance not only in LLL skills, but also in HLL skills. Literacy environments explained additional variance in LLL skills. In sum, our results suggest that literacy environments are differentially related to children's storybook exposure and language skills. Our finding that children's storybook exposure was a unique predictor of vocabulary, grammar, comprehension monitoring, and narrative comprehension indicates that shared book reading has the potential to foster a range of early literacy skills which predict reading comprehension.

for their assistance in conducting this study. We also thank all participating children and parents, child care centers, and teachers for supporting this study.

Children in transition from kindergarten to school develop fundamental skills important for the acquisition of reading and writing. Previous research pointed toward substantial correlations between specific language- and music-related competencies as well as positive transfer effects from music on pre-literacy skills. However, until now the relationship between diverse music and language competencies remains unclear. In the present study, we used a comprehensive approach to clarify the relationships between a broad variety of language and music skills on different levels, not only between but also within domains. In order to do so, we selected representative language- and music-related competencies and systematically compared the performance of N = 44 5- to 7-year-old children with a control group of N = 20 young adults aged from 20 to 30. Competencies were organized in distinct levels according to varying units of vowels/sounds, words or syllables/short melodic or rhythmic phrases, syntax/harmony and context of a whole story/song to test for their interrelatedness within each domain. Following this, we conducted systematic correlation analyses between the competencies of both domains. Overall, selected competencies appeared to be appropriate for the measurement of language and music skills in young children with reference to comprehension, difficulty and a developmental perspective. In line with a hierarchical model of skill acquisition, performance on lower levels was predictive for the performance on higher levels within domains. Moreover, correlations between domains were stronger for competencies reflecting a similar level of cognitive processing, as expected. In conclusion, a systematic comparison of various competencies on distinct levels according to varying units turned out to be appropriate regarding comparability and interrelatedness. Results are discussed with regard to similarities and differences in the development of language and music skills as well as in terms of implications for further research on transfer effects from music on language.

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Physical and mental well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic is typically assessed via surveys, which might make it difficult to conduct longitudinal studies and might lead to data suffering from recall bias. Ecological momentary assessment (EMA) driven smartphone apps can help alleviate such issues, allowing for in situ recordings. Implementing such an app is not trivial, necessitates strict regulatory and legal requirements, and requires short development cycles to appropriately react to abrupt changes in the pandemic. Based on an existing app framework, we developed Corona Health, an app that serves as a platform for deploying questionnaire-based studies in combination with recordings of mobile sensors. In this paper, we present the technical details of Corona Health and provide first insights into the collected data. Through collaborative efforts from experts from public health, medicine, psychology, and computer science, we released Corona Health publicly on Google Play and the Apple App Store (in July 2020) in eight languages and attracted 7290 installations so far. Currently, five studies related to physical and mental well-being are deployed and 17,241 questionnaires have been filled out. Corona Health proves to be a viable tool for conducting research related to the COVID-19 pandemic and can serve as a blueprint for future EMA-based studies. The data we collected will substantially improve our knowledge on mental and physical health states, traits and trajectories as well as its risk and protective factors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic and its diverse prevention measures.