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Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development

Centre-based childcare may benefit pre-school children and alleviate inequalities in early childhood development, but evidence on socio-emotional and physical health outcomes is limited. Data were from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 14,376). Inverse-probability weighting was used to estimate co...

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Autores principales: Green, Michael J., Pearce, Anna, Parkes, Alison, Robertson, Elaine, Katikireddi, S.Vittal
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Elsevier 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7980060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33768138
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100776
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author Green, Michael J.
Pearce, Anna
Parkes, Alison
Robertson, Elaine
Katikireddi, S.Vittal
author_facet Green, Michael J.
Pearce, Anna
Parkes, Alison
Robertson, Elaine
Katikireddi, S.Vittal
author_sort Green, Michael J.
collection PubMed
description Centre-based childcare may benefit pre-school children and alleviate inequalities in early childhood development, but evidence on socio-emotional and physical health outcomes is limited. Data were from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 14,376). Inverse-probability weighting was used to estimate confounder-adjusted population-average effects of centre and non-centre-based childcare (compared to parental care only) between ages 26–31 months on (age 3): internalising and externalising symptoms, pro-social behaviour, independence, emotional dysregulation, vocabulary, school readiness, and body mass index. To assess impacts on inequalities, controlled direct effects of low parental education and lone parenthood on all outcomes were estimated under two hypothetical scenarios: 1) universal take-up of centre-based childcare; and 2) parental care only. On average, non-centre based childcare improved vocabulary and centre-based care improved school readiness, with little evidence of other benefits. However, socio-economic inequalities were observed for all outcomes and were attenuated in scenario 1 (universal take-up). For example, inequalities in externalising symptoms (according to low parental education) were reduced from a confounder-adjusted standard deviation difference of 7.8 (95% confidence intervals: 6.7–8.8), to 1.7 (0.6–2.7). Inequalities by parental education in scenario 2 (parental care only) were wider than in scenario 1 for externalising symptoms (at 3.4; 2.4–4.4), and for emotional dysregulation and school readiness. Inequalities by lone parenthood, which were smaller, fell in scenario 1, and fell further in scenario 2. Universal access to centre-based pre-school care may alleviate inequalities, while restricted access (e.g. during lockdown for a pandemic such as Covid-19) may widen some inequalities in socioemotional and cognitive development.
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spelling pubmed-79800602021-03-24 Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development Green, Michael J. Pearce, Anna Parkes, Alison Robertson, Elaine Katikireddi, S.Vittal SSM Popul Health Article Centre-based childcare may benefit pre-school children and alleviate inequalities in early childhood development, but evidence on socio-emotional and physical health outcomes is limited. Data were from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 14,376). Inverse-probability weighting was used to estimate confounder-adjusted population-average effects of centre and non-centre-based childcare (compared to parental care only) between ages 26–31 months on (age 3): internalising and externalising symptoms, pro-social behaviour, independence, emotional dysregulation, vocabulary, school readiness, and body mass index. To assess impacts on inequalities, controlled direct effects of low parental education and lone parenthood on all outcomes were estimated under two hypothetical scenarios: 1) universal take-up of centre-based childcare; and 2) parental care only. On average, non-centre based childcare improved vocabulary and centre-based care improved school readiness, with little evidence of other benefits. However, socio-economic inequalities were observed for all outcomes and were attenuated in scenario 1 (universal take-up). For example, inequalities in externalising symptoms (according to low parental education) were reduced from a confounder-adjusted standard deviation difference of 7.8 (95% confidence intervals: 6.7–8.8), to 1.7 (0.6–2.7). Inequalities by parental education in scenario 2 (parental care only) were wider than in scenario 1 for externalising symptoms (at 3.4; 2.4–4.4), and for emotional dysregulation and school readiness. Inequalities by lone parenthood, which were smaller, fell in scenario 1, and fell further in scenario 2. Universal access to centre-based pre-school care may alleviate inequalities, while restricted access (e.g. during lockdown for a pandemic such as Covid-19) may widen some inequalities in socioemotional and cognitive development. Elsevier 2021-03-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7980060/ /pubmed/33768138 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100776 Text en © 2021 The Author(s) http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Green, Michael J.
Pearce, Anna
Parkes, Alison
Robertson, Elaine
Katikireddi, S.Vittal
Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
title Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
title_full Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
title_fullStr Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
title_full_unstemmed Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
title_short Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
title_sort pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7980060/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33768138
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmph.2021.100776
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