Abstract
BackgroundEarly child development influences many aspects of wellbeing, health, competence in literacy and numeracy, criminality, and social and economic participation throughout the life course. Children from disadvantaged groups have less possibilities of achieving full development. By providing a positive start for all children across the social gradient, improved developmental outcomes will be seen during later childhood and throughout their lives. The objective of this systematic review was to identify interventions during early childhood in countries from the World Health Organisation European Region in 1999–2013 which reduced inequalities in children’s health and development.MethodsA systematic review was carried out adhering to the PRISMA guidelines. The review examined universal, targeted and proportionate universalism interventions, programs and services using an electronic search strategy in PubMed and the International Bibliography of the Social Sciences [IBSS] databases. A further search was performed in the grey literature. Interventions were included only if they were aimed at children or their parents and had been evaluated.ResultsWe identified 23 interventions in total: 6 in the PubMed data base, 5 in IBSS and 12 in grey literature. All but 1 intervention-delivered in Sweden-were carried out in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland. These aimed to improve parenting abilities, however, some had additional components such as: day-care provision, improving housing conditions and speech or psychological therapies. Programmes offering intensive support, information and home visits using a psycho-educational approach and aimed at developing parent’s and children’s skills showed more favourable outcomes. These were parenting behaviours, overall children’s health and higher level of fine motor skills and cognitive functioning. Child injuries and abuse were also reduced. Two interventions were universally proportionate and all others were aimed at a specific target population.ConclusionsInterventions with better outcomes and a higher level of evidence combined workshops and educational programmes for both parents and children beginning during early pregnancy and included home visits by specialised staff. Further evaluation and publication of early years interventions should be carried out also within a wider range of countries than just the UK and Ireland.
Highlights
Child development influences many aspects of wellbeing, health, competence in literacy and numeracy, criminality, and social and economic participation throughout the life course
Interventions had to show outcomes in child health and developmental domains and/or parenting as international evidence has supported that programmes and services at this stage of life are aimed at parents as well as children [31]
The majority of the interventions had an impact on domains of child development (14), on parent–child bonding (15) or on children’s health and injury prevention (11), interventions could have an impact on more than one area
Summary
Child development influences many aspects of wellbeing, health, competence in literacy and numeracy, criminality, and social and economic participation throughout the life course. Child development [ECD] will influence many aspects of wellbeing, health, competence in literacy and numeracy, criminality and social and economic participation throughout the life course [3,4,5]. Socioeconomic status [SES] is associated with a multitude of development outcomes [8], for example, it has been described that children of mothers with mental health problems were more likely to have negative behavioural, emotional, and peer outcomes [9]. Children from disadvantaged groups are less likely to achieve a good level of development and have worse health outcomes [11]. Neighbourhood deprivation and the physical context influence early child development [12,13] and children from family backgrounds that pose multiple threats to their development tend to do better growing up in mixed socioeconomic neighbourhoods [14]
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