Learn What Can Be Done to Help Vulnerable Children (RWJF)

[N'Zinga Shani]

Family income and education, neighborhood resources, and other social and economic factors affect health at every stage of life—but the effects on young children are particularly dramatic, 15 to 20 years of accumulated research shows. Those early years have the potential to set us on paths leading toward—or away from—good health.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has provided some excellent research information about laying a critically important foundation for all children. Some key aspects of the results are in this blog; we encourage you to visit the web site linked below and follow the various subheadings to read the complete issue briefs.  These explain in detail how economic and social conditions can directly influence child development, shaping their health throughout their lives. The report also considers what can be done to help vulnerable children, based on the evidence of interventions that have been shown to work. Learn about the Cycle of Opportunity or Obstacles at every stage of life and the long term impact.

Please share the information; it can be helpful to others.

1). “Early Childhood Experiences Shape Health and Well-Being Throughout Life.”

Overview - It may not be surprising to hear that the earliest years of our lives are important in many ways. It may, however, come as a surprise to most people to learn that one of those ways is how those early years set us on paths leading toward — or away from— good health.

 a)      During the last 15 to 20 years, accumulated knowledge has revealed that family income

and education, neighborhood resources, and other social and economic factors affect

health at every stage of life, but the effects on young children are particularly dramatic.

 b)     While all parents want the best for their children, not all parents have the same resources

to help their children grow up healthy.

c)      Parents’ education and income levels can create — or limit —opportunities to provide their children with nurturing and stimulating environments and to model healthy behaviors. These opportunities and obstacles, along with their health impacts, accumulate over time and can be transmitted across generations as children grow up and become parents themselves.

2)     “Children's economic and social conditions can directly affect their health.”

a)      The association between socioeconomic factors and child health is evident from birth.

b)      Factors such as nutrition, housing quality, and safety at home and in the community  —all linked    with family resources — are strongly associated with child health.

c)      Research shows that children’s nutrition varies with parents’ income and education and can have lasting effects on health throughout life; for example, inadequate nutrition is linked with obesity during childhood, which in turn is a strong predictor of adult obesity and its accompanying risks of chronic disease, disability and shortened life.

 3.    “Social disadvantages in childhood—such as chronic stress—can lead to health disadvantages in adulthood.”

4.      The BEST way to strengthen and support families is to meet them where they are: in their homes.

http://www.rwjf.org/en/research-publications/find-rwjf-research/201...?

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