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Analysis
Early childhood development: an imperative for action and measurement at scale
  1. Linda Richter1,
  2. Maureen Black2,
  3. Pia Britto3,
  4. Bernadette Daelmans4,
  5. Chris Desmond5,
  6. Amanda Devercelli6,
  7. Tarun Dua7,
  8. Günther Fink8,9,
  9. Jody Heymann10,
  10. Joan Lombardi11,
  11. Chunling Lu12,
  12. Sara Naicker5,
  13. Emily Vargas-Barón13
  1. 1 Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg-Braamfontein, South Africa
  2. 2 RTI International, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA
  3. 3 Early Childhood Development, Unicef USA, New York City, New York, USA
  4. 4 Department of Maternal, Newborn, Child and Adolescent Health, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
  5. 5 DST-NRF Centre of Excellence in Human Development, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa
  6. 6 Early Childhood Development, World Bank Group, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
  7. 7 Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
  8. 8 Household Economics and Health Systems, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, Basel, Switzerland
  9. 9 Global Health and Population, Harvard University T H Chan School of Public Health, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  10. 10 Fielding School of Public Health and WORLD Policy Analysis Center, University of California, Los Angeles, California, USA
  11. 11 Early Opportunities, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
  12. 12 Division of Global Health, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
  13. 13 RISE Institute, Washington, District of Columbia, USA
  1. Correspondence to Professor Linda Richter; linda.richter{at}wits.ac.za

Abstract

Experiences during early childhood shape biological and psychological structures and functions in ways that affect health, well-being and productivity throughout the life course. The science of early childhood and its long-term consequences have generated political momentum to improve early childhood development and elevated action to country, regional and global levels. These advances have made it urgent that a framework, measurement tools and indicators to monitor progress globally and in countries are developed and sustained. We review progress in three areas of measurement contributing to these goals: the development of an index to allow country comparisons of young children’s development that can easily be incorporated into ongoing national surveys; improvements in population-level assessments of young children at risk of poor early development; and the production of country profiles of determinants, drivers and coverage for early childhood development and services using currently available data in 91 countries. While advances in these three areas are encouraging, more investment is needed to standardise measurement tools, regularly collect country data at the population level, and improve country capacity to collect, interpret and use data relevant to monitoring progress in early childhood development.

  • early childhood development
  • measurement
  • accountability
  • sustainable development goals
  • countdown to 2030
  • country profiles

This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2018-001302

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    Footnotes

    • Handling editor Seye Abimbola

    • Contributors All authors meet the conditions for authorship: substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work, or the acquisition, analysis or interpretation of data; drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; final approval of the version published; and agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

    • Funding This study has been funded by Conrad N Hilton Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

    • Competing interests None declared.

    • Patient consent for publication Not required.

    • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.

    • Data sharing statement Data on the country profiles are publicly available on the websites cited in the paper.