Child Public Health Resources
Reading archive
Hot Reads for Child Public Health March 2007
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Child Poverty in Perspective: An Overview of Child Well-being in Rich Countries. Innocenti Report Card 7, 2007. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, Florence
The six dimensions taken to measure the well- being of children – material well-being, health and safety, education, peer and family relationships, behaviors and risks, and young people’s own subjective sense of well-being – offer a picture of the lives of children, and no single dimension can stand as a reliable proxy for child well-being as a whole. The landmark report shows that among all of the 21 OECD countries there are improvements to be made and that no single OECD country leads in all six of the areas. According to the Report Card small North-European countries dominate the top half of the table, with child well-being at its highest in the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark and Finland. There is no strong or consistent relationship between per capita GDP and child well being. The Czech Republic, for example, achieves a higher overall rank for child well being than several much wealthier European countries. Also no country features in the top third of the rankings for all six dimensions of child well being. The report is intended as a first step towards regular and comprehensive monitoring of child well being across the OECD.
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Health of Children in Australia: A Snapshot, 2004-05. Australian Bureau of Statistics. February 2007
This article presents a brief summary of the health of children in Australia. Topics covered include health conditions, mental health, disability, risk factors and mortality. The article also describes how some factors influencing children's health are changing over time.
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Children’s Mental Health. Facts for Policymakers. National Centre for Children in Poverty. Columbia University.
Mental health is a key component in a child’s healthy development. Children need to be healthy in order to learn, grow, and lead productive lives. There are effective treatments, services, and supports that can help children and youth with mental health problems and those at risk to thrive and live successfully. Most children and youth in need of mental health services do not receive them.
The authors describe the state of mental health of children in the US and suggest effective public policy strategies to enhance mental health for children, youth, and their families. - The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development study of early childcare and youth development: Findings for children up to age 4½ years. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
A compendium of findings from a study funded by the National Institutes of Health reveals that a child’s family characteristics and children’s experiences within their families have more influence on a child’s development through age four and a half than does a child’s experience in child care.
For 15 years, researchers from 10 sites around the country have followed the development of more than 1,000 healthy children from across the United States. Children were enrolled in the study at birth. The study included children from ethnically diverse and economically disadvantaged households. More than 80 percent of the children in the study grew up in two-parent families.
The study tracked children’s experience in child care. It was not designed to determine cause and effect and so could not demonstrate conclusively whether or not a given aspect of the child care experience had a particular effect.
Study researchers periodically visited each child and family at home, in child care (if used), and in a laboratory playroom at each of the 10 sites. They also contacted families regularly by phone and by mail. Using tests, questionnaires, and direct observation, researchers collected information on how children responded to their environment, how they were developing in relation to what is typical at a given age, how they interacted with their parents and other children, and what their usual mood or personality was.
They also looked at children’s home environments; parents’ attitudes toward work, family, and child care; how child care was structured; and how providers cared for children.
Even though links existed between child care features and child development, the quality of interactions between mothers and children was more important for children’s development. Children did better if mothers were more sensitive, responsive, and attentive. And mothers were more likely to be like this if they were more educated, lived in more economically advantaged households, and had more positive personalities.
These NICHD-funded researchers are now following the development of the children through the ninth grade to see whether even minor differences in children’s development due to different early child care and family experiences might affect children later in life.
- The Importance of Play in Promoting Healthy Child Development and Maintaining Strong Parent-Child Bonds. American Academy of Paediatrics. PEDIATRICS (ISSN Numbers: Print, 0031-4005; Online, 1098-4275).
Play is essential to development because it contributes to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth. Play also offers an ideal opportunity for parents to engage fully with their children. Despite the benefits derived from play for both children and parents, time for free play has been markedly reduced for some children. This report addresses a variety of factors that have reduced play, including a hurried lifestyle, changes in family structure, and increased attention to academics and enrichment activities at the expense of recess or free child-centered play. This report offers guidelines on how pediatricians can advocate for children by helping families, school systems, and communities consider how best to ensure that play is protected as they seek the balance in children’s lives to create the optimal developmental milieu.