Child Health Outcomes

The purpose of this report, Understanding the Policy Landscape of Early Childhood Development in Saskatchewan, is twofold: to survey the policy landscape of early childhood development provincially and nationally, and to report on our knowledge transfer efforts to bring our research results to policy-makers and improve its uptake. This policy work is part of the Child Health Outcomes project, which examined how children’s health outcomes, from birth to age eight, are critically influenced by a combination of family circumstances and neighbourhood conditions. The technical report on this research is located here.

This report describes research conducted to understand how children’s health outcomes, from birth to age eight, are critically influenced by a combination of family circumstances and neighbourhood conditions. While it has been known intuitively for many generations that family circumstances and neighbourhood conditions play a critical role in shaping healthy childhood development, there is much to learn about how specific family or neighbourhood characteristics, either alone or in combination, work to affect specific childhood outcomes. This research project attempts to understand the seemingly intuitive but complex question of how families and neighbourhoods help or hinder children in the earliest years of their lives. Read more...

This article describes knowledge transfer and exchange in a study into the impact families' economic circumstances can have on early childhood development, which generated a number of complex findings. Instead of speculating on the policy and practice implications, researchers met with a group of decision makers working in early childhood development to discuss policy recommendations.

This case is part of the Canadian Institute of Health Research's book "Moving Population and Public Health Knowledge Into Action." The full casebook is available at: http://www.cihr.ca/e/29484.html