Does work modify the relationship between violence and mental health among young people? Evidence from the Violence Against Children Surveys in Uganda, Nigeria and Colombia.

Background: Considering the well-established link between experiencing violence in childhood and poor mental health, it is important to understand the role of contextual factors in which young people live, learn, work, and play. Evidence has highlighted the importance of work as a contextual factor in the lives of young people, but it is unclear whether being in work mitigates, entrenches, or exacerbates the association between violence against children and poor mental health.

Methods: This study is based on nationally representative data of males and females aged 13-24 years who completed the Violence Against Children Surveys in Nigeria, Uganda, and Colombia.

Global development assistance for early childhood care and education in 134 low- and middle-income countries, 2007-2021.

Introduction: Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) often dedicate limited domestic funds to expand quality early childhood care and education (ECCE), making complementary international donor support potentially important. However, research on the allocation of international development assistance for ECCE has been limited.

Methods: We analysed data from the Creditor Reporting System on aid projects to assess global development assistance for ECCE in 134 LMICs from 2007 to 2021.

The cost of not investing in the next 1000 days: implications for policy and practice.

Building on the evidence from the first paper in this Series highlighting the fundamental importance of healthy and nurturing environments for children's growth and development in the next 1000 days (ages 2-5 years), this paper summarises the benefits and costs of key strategies to support children's development in this age range. The next 1000 days build on the family-based and health-sector based interventions provided in the first 1000 days and require broader multisectoral programming. Interventions that have been shown to be particularly effective in this age range are the provision of early childhood care and education (ECCE), parenting interventions, and cash transfers.

The next 1000 days: building on early investments for the health and development of young children.

Following the first 1000 days of life that span from conception to two years of age, the next 1000 days of a child's life from 2-5 years of age offer a window of opportunity to promote nurturing and caring environments, establish healthy behaviours, and build on early gains to sustain or improve trajectories of healthy development. This Series paper, the first of a two-paper Series on early childhood development and the next 1000 days, focuses on the transition to the next 1000 days of the life course, describes why this developmental period matters, identifies the environments of care, risks, and protective factors that shape children's development, estimates the number of children who receive adequate nurturing care, and examines whether current interventions are meeting children's needs. Paper 2 focuses on the cost of inaction and the implications of not investing in the next 1000 days.

Prevention of Violence Against Children: A Qualitative Exploration of Colombian Policymakers', Programme Facilitators' and Caregivers' Perceptions.

Objective: Violence against children (VAC) is a global public health and human rights issue that can lead to long-lasting negative consequences for individual and societal outcomes. While extensive evidence indicates that parenting programmes might be effective in preventing VAC, there are several unsolved questions on how to ensure interventions are acceptable, feasible, effective and sustainable, particularly in low- and- middle-income countries (LMICs).

Method: In this study, we report findings from a qualitative examination of policymakers' (N = 10), early childhood and parenting programme facilitators' (N = 20) and parents' and other caregivers' (N = 38) perspectives on VAC prevention to examine the implementation ecosystem of parenting programmes in Colombia, including contextual risk and protection factors, features of existing programmes, and stakeholders' needs.

Strategies to Prevent Violence Against Children in the Home: A Systematic Review of Reviews.

Violence against children (VAC) in the home, or by household members, is a human rights and social problem with long-lasting consequences for individuals and society. Global policy instruments like the INSPIRE package have proposed strategies to prevent VAC, including Implementation and enforcement of laws, Norms and values, Safe environments, Parent and caregiver support, Income and economic strengthening, Response and support services, and Education and life skills. This systematic review of reviews aimed to synthesize the recent evidence base (i.

Climate change is a threat multiplier for violence against children.

Background: The climate crisis is the biggest threat to the health, development, and wellbeing of the current and future generations. While there is extensive evidence on the direct impacts of climate change on human livelihood, there is little evidence on how children and young people are affected, and even less discussion and evidence on how the climate crisis could affect violence against children.

Participants And Setting: In this commentary, we review selected research to assess the links between the climate crisis and violence against children.

Family play, reading, and other stimulation and early childhood development in five low-and-middle-income countries.

This paper used longitudinal data from five studies conducted in Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda to examine the links between family stimulation and early childhood development outcomes (N = 4904; M = 51.5; 49% girls). Results from random-effects and more conservative child-fixed effects models indicate that across these studies, family stimulation, measured by caregivers' engagement in nine activities (e.

The acute effects of community violence on young children's regulatory, behavioral, and developmental outcomes in a low-income urban sample in Brazil.

Background: Existing research on the impacts of adversity on young children's psychological well-being has largely focused on household-level risk factors using observational methods in high-income countries. This study leverages natural variation in the timing and location of community homicides to estimate their acute effects on the regulatory, behavioral, and developmental outcomes of Brazilian 3-year-olds.

Methods: We compared the outcomes of children who were assessed soon after a recent neighborhood homicide to those of children from the same residential neighborhoods who had not recently experienced community violence.

Physical punishment and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.

Background: Physical punishment at home and in schools is widespread around the world. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have synthesized evidence, mostly from high-income countries (HICs), showing that physical punishment relates to multiple detrimental individual outcomes. Yet, less work has been done to synthesize the evidence on the association between physical punishment at home and schools and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where more than 90% of children live and physical punishment is most socially normative and prevalent.

Prevention of violence against children in the home: an overview of reviews protocol.

Background: Violence against children (VAC) in the home, or by household members, is a widespread problem with devastating and costly consequences for individuals and societies. In the past two decades, much research has been dedicated to the prevention of VAC in the home, in particular, in low- and- middle-income countries, but there are few systematic examinations of the growing body of literature. We present a protocol for an overview of reviews to synthesize the evidence from recent reviews on the effectiveness and characteristics of both universal and selective interventions to prevent VAC in the home or by household members.

Child exposure to violence and self-regulation in South African preschool-age children from low-income settings.

Biological and psychosocial stressors that have been associated with income include family dynamics such as household chaos, family conflict, maternal depression, harsh parenting, lower parental responsiveness, and exposure to violence. Research from high income countries has shown that exposure to violence may have detrimental effects on children's self-regulation, with possible flow-on implications for broad later-life outcomes, but less is known about such links in low- and- middle income countries, where many children live in violent communities and households and where physical punishment remains the norm. This study aimed to investigate exposure to violence, in addition to coercive parenting, and its associations with self-regulation among 243 3- to 5-year-olds (M = 4.

Executive function, self-regulation skills, behaviors, and socioeconomic status in early childhood.

Background And Objectives: Prior research has established steep socioeconomic status (SES) disparities in children's cognitive skills at kindergarten entry. Yet, few studies have had comprehensive, multi-informant data to examine SES-related differences in foundational social and emotional skills and executive function. The objective of the current study is to systematically examine SES-related differences in young children's executive function (EF), self-regulation skills, and behaviors.

The Apapacho Violence Prevention Parenting Program: Conceptual Foundations and Pathways to Scale.

Violence against children (VAC) is a major global issue with long-lasting negative consequences on individuals and societies. The present study presents a review of the literature on drivers of VAC and the core components of evidence-based violence prevention programs. Moreover, it analyzes the existing services and social infrastructure in Colombia to rigorously inform the design of the Apapacho violence prevention parenting program for families with children younger than five targeted toward Colombia.

Corporal Punishment and Child Development in Low- and- Middle-Income Countries: Progress, Challenges, and Directions.

Most studies and reviews of studies on the developmental consequences of corporal punishment have focused on samples from the U.S. and other high-income countries.

Estimates of a multidimensional index of nurturing care in the next 1000 days of life for children in low-income and middle-income countries: a modelling study.

Background: Nurturing care is crucial for children's ongoing development during the pre-primary education period, or the next 1000 days of life. We generated nationally representative prevalence estimates of access to ten basic indicators of nurturing care among children aged 3-4 years in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs).

Methods: We applied multiple imputation and predictive modelling to data on children living in LMICs.

Changes in Children's Behavioral Health and Family Well-Being During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Objective: The coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic and associated public health measures have influenced all aspects of life for children and families. In this study, we examine changes in children's behavioral health and families' well-being at the start of the pandemic.

Method: We used longitudinal data on 2880 children from 1 US state collected over 3 waves to compare family and child well-being before and after a state-wide stay-at-home advisory set in March 2020.

Measuring and forecasting progress in education: what about early childhood?

A recent Nature article modelled within-country inequalities in primary, secondary, and tertiary education and forecast progress towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) targets related to education (SDG 4). However, their paper entirely overlooks inequalities in achieving Target 4.2, which aims to achieve universal access to quality early childhood development, care and preschool education by 2030.

Global estimates of the implications of COVID-19-related preprimary school closures for children's instructional access, development, learning, and economic wellbeing.

Observational data collected prior to the pandemic (between 2004 and 2019) were used to simulate the potential consequences of early childhood care and education (ECCE) service closures on the estimated 167 million preprimary-age children in 196 countries who lost ECCE access between March 2020 and February 2021. COVID-19-related ECCE disruptions were estimated to result in 19.01 billion person-days of ECCE instruction lost, 10.

The effect of spanking on early social-emotional skills.

Whether spanking is detrimental for social-emotional (SE) development remains controversial, mostly due to disputes around the internal and external validity of existing evidence. This study examined the effect of spanking on the SE development of Bhutanese children, using a national, longitudinal sample (N = 1377; M  = 50.5 months old; 50% girls).

Multilevel ecological analysis of the predictors of spanking across 65 countries.

Objective: Ending violence against children is critical to promote the health and socioemotional development of children across the globe. To this end, the UNICEF and the WHO have called for the abolishment of spanking, which is the most pervasive form of physical violence against children worldwide. This study used an ecological perspective to examine micro-level and macro-level predictors of parental spanking across 65 countries.