Children's views on outdoor advertising of unhealthy food and beverages near schools.

Children are often exposed to unhealthy outdoor food advertisements during the school commute. This exposure can have negative public health consequences given childhood weight gain has been linked to the marketing of energy-dense and nutrient-poor foods. This study aimed to explore schoolchildren's lived experiences and attitudes towards outdoor advertising surrounding their schools.

Early childhood development strategy for the world's children with disabilities.

Early childhood is foundational for optimal and inclusive lifelong learning, health and well-being. Young children with disabilities face substantial risks of sub-optimal early childhood development (ECD), requiring targeted support to ensure equitable access to lifelong learning opportunities, especially in low- and middle-income countries. Although the Sustainable Development Goals, 2015-2030 (SDGs) emphasise inclusive education for children under 5 years with disabilities, there is no global strategy for achieving this goal since the launch of the SDGs.

Mental health profiles and academic achievement in Australian school students.

This study explored mental health profiles in Australian school students using indicators of well-being (i.e., optimism, life satisfaction, and happiness) and psychological distress (i.

Objectively measured infant and toddler screen time: Findings from a prospective study.

Objective: Screen time guidelines recommend no screens under two years due to the potential negative impacts on development. While current reports suggest many children exceed this, research relies on parent reports of their children's screen exposure. We objectively assess screen exposure during the first two years and how it differs by maternal education and gender.

Investigating the Validity of the Australian Early Development Census.

This article continues evaluation of the construct validity of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) through comparison with linked data from a sample of 2216 4-5 year old children collected as part of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). This builds on the construct validity assessment of Brinkman et al. (Early Educ Dev 18(3):427-451, 2007) based on a smaller sample of linked Australian Early Development Instrument (AvEDI) and LSAC children, in which moderate to large correlations were apparent between teacher-rated AvEDI domains and subconstructs and LSAC measures, with lower levels apparent for parent reported LSAC measures.

The Nutritional Quality of Kids' Menus from Cafés and Restaurants: An Australian Cross-Sectional Study.

Australian families increasingly rely on eating foods from outside the home, which increases intake of energy-dense nutrient-poor foods. 'Kids' Menus' are designed to appeal to families and typically lack healthy options. However, the nutritional quality of Kids' Menus from cafes and full-service restaurants (as opposed to fast-food outlets) has not been investigated in Australia.

Prevalence of breakfast skipping among children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study.

Background: Interventions to promote breakfast consumption are a popular strategy to address early life inequalities. It is important to understand the epidemiology of children and adolescents who skip breakfast so that interventions and policy can be appropriately considered. This study investigated the prevalence of breakfast skipping among a contemporary, population-wide sample of children and adolescents in Australia.

Prevalence of electronic device use before bed among Australian children and adolescents: a cross-sectional population level study.

Objective: To understand the prevalence of children and adolescents' electronic device use (EDU) in the hour before bed and identify sociodemographic groups that are at increased risk of problematic use.

Method: A contemporary population wide sample of South Australian school students aged 8-18 years (n = 70,936) was utilised to present descriptive statistics of EDU before bed across sociodemographic groups. Data was collected from the 2019 Wellbeing and Engagement Collection, an annual self-report census of students' health, wellbeing and school engagement.

Basic epidemiology of wellbeing among children and adolescents: A cross-sectional population level study.

Wellbeing and mental health are fundamental rights of children and adolescents essential for sustainable development. Understanding the epidemiology of child and adolescent wellbeing is essential to informing population health approaches to improving wellbeing and preventing mental illness. The present study estimated the prevalence of wellbeing and how wellbeing indicators were distributed across social and economic groups.

Findings from the Kids in Communities Study (KiCS): A mixed methods study examining community-level influences on early childhood development.

There is increasing international interest in place-based approaches to improve early childhood development (ECD) outcomes. The available data and evidence are limited and precludes well informed policy and practice change. Developing the evidence-base for community-level effects on ECD is one way to facilitate more informed and targeted community action.

Inequalities in child development at school entry: A repeated cross-sectional analysis of the Australian Early Development Census 2009-2018.

Background: Australia is the only developed country to consistently undertake a developmental census of its children nationwide. The repeated collection of the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC) has provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine the prevalence of developmental vulnerability across Australia's states and territories, the socio-economic distribution of developmental vulnerability across jurisdictions, and how these distributions might have changed over time.

Methods: This study employed multivariable logistic regressions to estimate the probability of developmental vulnerability within each jurisdiction and AEDC collection year (2009 to 2018), adjusting for jurisdictional differences in socio-demographic characteristics.

The education word gap emerges by 18 months: findings from an Australian prospective study.

Background: The idea of the '30 million word gap' suggests families from more socioeconomically advantaged backgrounds engage in more verbal interactions with their child than disadvantaged families. Initial findings from the Language in Little Ones (LiLO) study up to 12 months showed no word gap between maternal education groups.

Methods: Families with either high or low maternal education were purposively recruited into a five-year prospective study.

Measuring early child development in low and middle income countries: Investigating the validity of the early Human Capability Index.

Inclusion of early child development in the United Nations Sustainable Development Agenda raises issues of how this goal should be monitored, particularly in low resource settings. The aim of this paper was to explore the validity of the early Human Capability Index (eHCI); a population measure designed to capture the holistic development of children aged 3-5 years. Convergent, divergent, discriminant and concurrent validity were examined by exploring the associations between eHCI domains and child (sex, age, stunting status, preschool attendance) and family (maternal education, home learning environment) characteristics.

Measuring early childhood development with The Early Human Capability Index (eHCI): a reliability and validity study in China.

Background: With the importance of early childhood development more recognized by the international society, low-cost and cross-culturally comparable measures of early childhood development is in great demand, both in China and worldwide. In this study, we aim to test the psychometrics of the Chinese version of The Early Human Capability Index (eHCI), which is designed as a measurement for school readiness in large population.

Methods: We evaluated the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, factor structure, criterion-related validity, and discriminant validity of the eHCI in 20,324 preschool children in Shanghai.

Reading and numeracy attainment of children reported to child protection services: A population record linkage study controlling for other adversities.

Background: Maltreated children are at risk of poor educational outcomes, but also experience greater individual, family, and neighbourhood adversities that may obscure an understanding of relationships between child protection involvement and educational attainment.

Objective: To examine associations between child protection involvement and 3rd- and 5th-grade reading and numeracy attainment, while controlling multiple other adversities.

Participants And Setting: Participants were 56,860 Australian children and their parents from the New South Wales Child Development Study with linked multi-agency records.

How many words are Australian children hearing in the first year of life?

Background: There is evidence that parents from more socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds engage in fewer verbal interactions with their child than more advantaged parents. This leads to the so-called, '30 million-word gap'. This study aims to investigate the number of words children hear and the number of vocalizations children produce in their first year of life and examines whether these aspects of the early language home environment differ by maternal education.

Gender gaps in cognitive and social-emotional skills in early primary grades: Evidence from rural Indonesia.

This paper examines the magnitude and source of gender gaps in cognitive and social-emotional skills in early primary grades in rural Indonesia. Relative to boys, girls score more than 0.17 SD higher in tests of language and mathematics (cognitive skills) and between 0.

Measuring early childhood development in multiple contexts: the internal factor structure and reliability of the early Human Capability Index in seven low and middle income countries.

Background: The fourth year of the Sustainable Development Agenda era calls for countries to continue to invest not only in interventions and policies that will promote global equity and sustainability, but also in the monitoring systems required to track progress against these targets. A more pragmatic solution to measuring children's early development in low and middle income countries in particular, is required. This study explores the psychometric properties of the early Human Capability Index (eHCI), a population measure of holistic development for children aged 3-5 years, designed with the vision of being flexible and feasible for use in low resource and capacity settings.

Local Housing Characteristics Associated with Early Childhood Development Outcomes in Australian Disadvantaged Communities.

Disadvantaged communities tend to have poorer early childhood development outcomes. Access to safe, secure, and stable housing is a well-known social determinant of health but there is a need to examine key features of neighbourhood housing that reduce early childhood development inequities. The 2012 Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), a population-wide measure of early childhood development, and the Australian Bureau of Statistics Socio-economic Index for Areas Index of Relative Socio-economic Disadvantage were used to select fourteen disadvantaged local communities in five Australian states and territories based on those performing better (off-diagonal), or as expected (on-diagonal) on the AEDC relative to their socio-economic profile.

Early developmental risk for subsequent childhood mental disorders in an Australian population cohort.

Objective: We examined associations between developmental vulnerability profiles determined at the age of 5 years and subsequent childhood mental illness between ages 6 and 13 years in an Australian population cohort.

Methods: Intergenerational records from New South Wales (NSW) Government Departments of Health and Child Protection spanning pre-birth to 13 years of age were linked with the 2009 Australian Early Development Census records for 86,668 children. Mental illness indices for children were extracted from health records between 2009 and 2016 (child's age of 6-13 years).