Externalizing behavior in preschool children in a South African birth cohort: Predictive pathways in a high-risk context.

Mental health problems often begin in early childhood. However, the associations of various individual and contextual risk factors with mental health in the preschool period are incompletely understood, particularly in low- to middle-income countries (LMICs) where multiple risk factors co-exist. To address this gap, we prospectively followed 981 children in a South African birth cohort, the Drakenstein Child Health Study, assessing pre-and postnatal exposures and risk factors.