Environment, Child Health & Development

Abstract

Early life experience is built into our body; significant adversities in a child’s growing environment would become early childhood roots of impairments in health, learning and behavior. Recent scientific studies using socioeconomic model showed that the yield of capital investment in human life drops exponentially as age increases while early childhood is the most rewarding period worth investing. Hence it is most logical to invest more resources into early human life to promote child health and development. In the first ever Child Health Survey conducted by our Department on more than 7000 Hong Kong children, we found almost 30% of children living in poverty and suffering from inequality in health, development and early education opportunity. Children from low income families were less likely to receive preschool education but more likely to have poor physical and mental health problems, while their parents tend to have fair parenting coping skills. More recent longitudinal study using Chinese Early Development Instrument (CEDI) found significant gradient relationship between School Readiness and the family socioeconomic backgrounds of Hong Kong children. A significant proportion of the gradients could be accounted by mediators from both family processes (e.g. parent-child interactive activities, use of digital devices) and kindergarten resources (e.g. teacher education level, education relevance and working experience). Optimal sleep and proper use of digital devices were also found to be important predictors of children’s development and behavior. Given the importance of these scientific findings, parents and professionals should pay more attention to evidence-based practice in promoting early childhood development. Key facilitators and barriers need to be identified in order to design effective intervention programs at both population and individual level. There is an urgent need of integrating the existing education, health and social services in order to provide an optimal platform and a more stimulating environment for our children to develop. Building a solid foundation for children in the early years provides the best chance for them to have optimal health and educational success, and impacts on children’s right and development throughout the course of their lives.