Abstract
BackgroundThe Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study has been conducted since 2015 to clarify the associations between socioeconomic factors and child health, as well as to accumulate data for political evaluation of the child-poverty agenda. This paper describes the purpose and research design of the A-CHILD study and the baseline profiles of participants, together with the future framework for implementing this cohort study.MethodsWe have conducted two types of continuous survey: a complete-sample survey started in 2015 as a first wave study to target first-grade children in all public elementary schools in Adachi City, Tokyo, and a biennial fixed grade observation survey started in 2016 in selected elementary and junior high schools. Questionnaires were answered by caregivers of all targeted children and also by the children themselves for those in the fourth grade and higher. The data of A-CHILD also combined information obtained from school health checkups of all school-grade children, as well as the results from blood test and measurement of blood pressure of eight-grade children since 2016.ResultsThe valid responses in the first wave were 4,291 (80.1%). The number of households in “living difficulties”, such as low household income or material deprivation, stood at 1,047 (24.5%).ConclusionsThe A-CHILD study will contribute to the clarification of the impact of poverty on children’s health disparities and paves the way to managing this issue in the community.
Highlights
The Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study has been conducted since 2015 to clarify the associations between socioeconomic factors and child health, as well as to accumulate data for political evaluation of the child-poverty agenda
The proportion of children who lived in households below the poverty line, that is, households with less than half of the median household-size-adjusted income of the population, was 16.3% as of 2012,2 rendering Japan to be ranked 12th among 35 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries.[3]
While many related literature reviews and policy descriptions were published in Japan, there is a lack of studies which use quantitative data to study the effects of the poverty on child health and development
Summary
The Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study has been conducted since 2015 to clarify the associations between socioeconomic factors and child health, as well as to accumulate data for political evaluation of the child-poverty agenda. The first was a complete-sample survey started in 2015 as a first wave study to target first-grade children (aged 6–7 years old) in all public elementary schools in Adachi City.
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