Dear CHIFA colleagues,
Below are extracts of a Lancet editorial to introduce a new Lancet series: Early Childhood Development and the Next 1000 Days (age 2-5 years)
CITATION: The next 1000 days: the forgotten ages of child health
The Lancet, Volume 404, Issue 10467, 2021
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)02553-4/fulltext
'The story of child and adolescent health over the past 25 years is one of clear but sometimes stalled progress... It started with a focus on reducing mortality in children younger than 5 years, which almost halved, from 9·9 million deaths in 2000, to 5·3 million in 2019... But a crucial age group has been largely forgotten...
'From the ages of 2–5 years, many children fall through the cracks between the frequent interactions with health-care systems after birth and during early infancy and the infrastructure that is provided by formal education. This effect is magnified by poverty and follows axes of inequity across the world, both within and between countries. These years are a pivotal yet neglected phase in a child's development, when they acquire crucial foundations for future learning and success, including rapid acceleration in a range of motor, social, and language and literacy skills.'
The series explores a wide range of topics: disability, rights, conflict, violence against children, childhood care and education. 'Across the world, the early childhood care and education setting is under-regulated, undergoverned, underprofessionalised, and undervalued. This Series provides strong evidence that this situation must change and should compel governments and policy makers to seriously reconsider where to focus their budgets.'
The editorial ends with a call for increased investment in this age group.
From a CHIFA perspective, what are the priority information and learning needs of health workers and parents with regards to child health age 2-5 years? What do we know about current quality of care in this age group? And what are the priority human rights issues for this age group?
HIFA profile:
Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil@hifa.org