Tag Archives: Children

A bedtime story

Reading is key to giving children the best possible start in life. That’s what Child of our Time Editor Professor Yvonne Kelly will be telling representatives of the Swedish Government and European Commission today when she delivers the key note presentation at a seminar highlighting the importance and benefits of early interventions in children’s lives.

The seminar in Brussels has been organised by the City of Gothenburg in Sweden as part of its efforts to achieve the political goal of becoming an equal city and of its commitment to reduce inequalities.

Yvonne will be sharing research by herself and colleagues at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies looking at factors associated with children’s poor verbal skills and behaviour problems. The research shows the links between regular bedtimes and reading with children and better outcomes for them in terms of behaviour and how well they get on at school.

Organisers of the event hope their efforts will encourage other cities in Europe to join them in their ambition to create health equality and a good start in life for all.

Photo credit: Lars Plougmann

Racism, mixed race and child health

Child of Our Time Editor, Professor Yvonne Kelly has been outlining the impacts of racism on the health and development of children in her keynote talk at a workshop hosted by the Institute for Economic Analysis of Decision Making.

Professor Kelly, who is based at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL, has led a major programme of research looking at the role that ethnicity plays in disparities in child health and behaviour and she and her team have published a range of research from the project.

In today’s talk, she shared some of the key findings from the research around the different outcomes for children from various ethnic backgrounds, including their:

  • birthweight
  • physical development
  • obesity
  • early onset of puberty
  • mother and teacher reports of challenging behaviour
  • verbal skills

The talk also covered the frequency of racist attacks on different groups and their impact on children’s physical and mental health. Brand new research focusing specifically on mixed ethnicity children and their behaviour was also included.

Professor Kelly commented:

“Our research shows clearly that direct and indirect experiences of racism can negatively influence a child’s development and health – whether it be via their access to resources tor the increased likelihood that they will take up unhealthy behaviours.”

She added:

“It’s never too late to prevent disease in childhood or later years. Our research shows that racism is a key consideration for all those seeking to achieve that; policy makers, practitioners and the wider public alike.”

 

 

We know enough now to stop hitting our children

Despite a steady decline in recent decades, the physical punishment of children remains common in British homes. The UK is one of only five countries in the European Union which has not committed to outlawing all physical punishment. British children have less protection from physical violence than adults – a clear violation of international human rights law. And, as a new study commissioned by a group of children’s charities shows, there’s ample evidence physical punishment can damage children and escalate into physical abuse. Author of the report, Dr Anja Heilmann from University College London makes the case for urgent action:

Sadly, it’s only the most extreme forms of child maltreatment that have dominated the headlines in recent years. As far as the media is concerned, there is a dearth of in-depth coverage of the issue of physical punishment, whilst UK governments have not implemented the kind of legal reform that has been happening in countries across the world.

Though there are variations between the nations of the UK, broadly all allow a defence of ‘reasonable punishment’ to a parent accused of lesser physical assault of a child in their care. In Scotland, the defence is one of ‘justifiable assault’.

In 2008, the Scottish Government said :

‘the current position ensures that the law gives children sufficient protection without unnecessarily criminalising parents who lightly smack their child.’

This position, however, is at odds with the substantial evidence base.

Much new research

Internationally, the past decade has seen a surge in the number of studies on the prevalence and outcomes of the physical punishment of children. The most recent substantial review in the UK was a 2008 study in Northern Ireland.

Our aim was to summarise the evidence that has become available since then. To do this we reviewed relevant studies published in English between January 2005 and June 2015. For a definition of physical punishment we used that provided by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child:

‘Corporal’ or ‘physical’ punishment is any punishment in which physical force is used and intended to cause some degree of pain or discomfort, however light.’     

We defined a ‘child’ as anyone under 18. Our initial search yielded more than 1500 returns. We narrowed these down to 98 for in-depth review.

Clear evidence of negative effects

The good news is that the physical punishment of children is in decline. One study found that in 1998 in the UK, 61% of young adults reported having been smacked as a child, while in 2009 this was true for 43%.

Public attitudes have also shifted with the use of physical punishment becoming less and less acceptable and a higher proportion of parents doubting its usefulness.

On a less positive note, we found clear evidence of physical punishment continuing to lead to serious negative outcomes for the child. Four-fifths of the relevant studies found physical punishment was related to increased aggression, delinquency and other anti-social behaviour.

One study in Scotland found that children who had been smacked during their first two years of life were more than twice as likely to have emotional and behavioural problems at age 4 than children who had not been smacked. There was evidence that the more physical punishment suffered by a child, the worse the subsequent problem behaviour.

The evidence suggests that physical punishment is still harmful even when administered in a generally loving and positive family environment – the “loving smack” might be a myth. In addition, all studies that tested it found a link between physical punishment and more serious child maltreatment.

The negative effects continue into adulthood. Again, four out of five relevant studies suggest a link between childhood physical punishment and adult aggression and antisocial behaviour. One large study in the US found that participants who had been physically punished as children were 60% more likely to suffer alcohol or drug dependence.

Legislate and communicate

Though the UK is in a minority in allowing physical punishment, it is not alone. We also looked at five European countries with varying legislative regimes. In all we found a large and growing majority of parents striving to rear their children without physical punishment.

Those countries which had both legislated to give children equal protection against assault and promoted intensive, long-term campaigns of public education had been more effective in changing attitudes and behaviours than those which had pursued either strategy alone.

The international approach to children’s rights is clear: they should be equal to those of adults. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which states that all steps to protect children from physical violence should be taken, has been ratified by the UK. And the UK’s continuing failure to explicitly prohibit all corporal punishment in the home has been criticised by the committee that monitors implementation of the Convention.

Act now

“Further research needed” is often one recommendation coming out of a study like this. And there is still a need to know more, for instance, about the efficacy of measures to reduce the incidence of childhood physical punishment.

But no more research is needed to tell us that physical punishment has the potential to damage children and carries the risk of escalation into physical abuse. Our conclusions only reinforce the findings of the 2008 Northern Ireland study.

We need legislation now. And legislation backed up by a large-scale information and awareness campaign.

Equally Protected? A review of the evidence on the physical punishment of children by Dr Anja Heilmann, Professor Yvonne Kelly and Professor Richard G Watt was commissioned by NSPCC Scotland, CHILDREN 1st, Barnardo’s Scotland and the Children and Young People’s Commissioner Scotland.

Photo credit: ellyn.

 

Reporting children’s challenging behaviour

When it comes to dealing with children’s problem behaviour, do parents and teachers report the same things in the same way and is that linked in some way to the child’s race or ethnicity ? That’s the focus of a recent study by a cross Atlantic team of researchers from the University of Michigan and University College London. Professor Pamela Davis-Kean from the  University of Michigan talked to Child of our Time about the research.

Reports of Externalizing Behavior: Comparative Analyses between the UK and US is research by Rebecca Waller, Afshin Zilanawala, Sheryl Olson, Amanda Sacker, Meichu Chen, Sharon Simonton,  James Nazroo, Yvonne Kelly, James S. Jackson, Pamela Davis-Kean.

Photo credit: helpingting

 

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Bringing up Britain and bedtimes

Can what time a child goes to bed affect how they get on at school was one of the topics under discussion in the first of BBC Radio 4’s Bringing up Britain series, which this week considered whether and how it is possible to boost a child’s IQ. The programme featured research by Child of Our Time Editor, Professor Yvonne Kelly into whether the time a child goes to bed has any influence on their reading and maths ability and spatial awareness.

Presenter Mariella Frostrup and a panel of experts discussed a range of research and views about the role of parenting on intelligence – from the effect of exercise and diet to the difference can breastfeeding, flashcards, violin lessons and superfoods really make.

When it came to looking at the effect of bedtimes, the programme interviewed Professor Kelly, who talked them through findings from her recent work looking at the effects of regular and irregular bedtimes and some 10,000 children in the Millennium Cohort Study.

Speaking on the programme, she explained that that children with irregular bedtimes did not do so well as their counterparts with more regular bedtimes and that the difference was “not trivial”, equating to a difference of around 2-3 IQ points.

The research has also looked at the effects of irregular bedtimes on children’s behaviour as well as how well they are getting on.

If you are interested in finding out more about how the bedtimes research was carried out, you  can listen to Yvonne Kelly in one of our Child of our Time Research Talks here on the blog.

Photo credit: Lars Plougmann

Parenting before and after separation

Do more involved dads have more contact with their child in the event of a separation? And does a mother’s confidence in her ability as a parent take a knock on separation? Researchers Professor Lucinda Platt from the London School of Economics and Political Science and Dr Tina Haux from the University of Kent  have been investigating these questions, using the Millennium Cohort Study, in a Nuffield Foundation funded research project looking at parenting before and after separation.

 

Photo credit: Dani Vazquez

Ethnicity, birthweight and growth in early childhood

Birthweight varies according to ethnic group but height at the age of five does not. Why might that be? Does it tell us anything about the lives of second and third generation immigrants? And does it offer any useful guidance to health professionals hoping to target disadvantaged groups? Professor Yvonne Kelly outlines recent research with colleagues at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies looking at differences in birthweight and early growth between ethnic groups.

Birthweight is important. There is a large body of work that suggests links between low birthweight and the development of chronic disease. Height at the age of five is a less straightforward indicator but still an important measure. The relationship between the two is important as well. Rapid post-natal growth may also have a role in later disease risk, and any correlation may tell us something about the lives of people born in the UK to parents born elsewhere.

Earlier research shows that babies born to South Asian and Black mothers weigh up to 300g less than those with White mothers. They are also up to two and a half times more likely than their White counterparts to have low birthweight.

Our study made use of the rich information available in the Millennium Cohort Study and enabled us to drill down further into ethnic differences. We were able to look at White, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Black Caribbean and Black African groups.

These, of course, are groups that have very different migration histories. The Black Caribbeans and Indians mainly migrated to the UK in the 1950s and 1960s. The Pakistanis arrived in the 1960s and 1970s, the Bangladeshis in the 1980s and the Black Africans in the 1990s.

Social v biological

If you accept that ethnicity is a social not a biological construct, these variations must be the result of factors that are not intrinsic to the group but tend to go with membership. Relevant factors are likely to be either socioeconomic or maternal.

So, if one group tends to have higher incomes and higher levels of educational attainment, it is likely to have fewer babies with low birthweight. Similarly, if mothers within one group are less likely to smoke they too are likely to have heavier babies.

Because our research compared data on birthweight to those on ethnicity, socioeconomic status and maternal characteristics, it was possible to identify which were most closely associated.

The results suggest that socioeconomic factors are important in explaining birthweight differences in Black Caribbean, Black African, Bangladeshi and Pakistani infants. Maternal characteristics are important in explaining birthweight differences in Indian and Bangladeshi groups. Clearly, both must operate to some extent in all cases.

Our study identifies the dominant factor for each ethnic group and recommends policy-makers pay attention to the different socioeconomic and culturally related profiles of ethnic minority groups when devising policies aimed at reducing inequalities in birthweight.

A question of height

One key maternal characteristic identified was height. Mothers from the Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi groups were on average 8cm shorter than White mothers. We speculate that it might take several generations for individuals within ethnic groups to reach their height potential.

And it could be that increases in maternal height do not happen so much for the first couple of migrant generations due to the ‘accumulated effects of disadvantage, including racism, discrimination and poverty that are disproportionately experienced by migrants’. That idea was put to the test in a second study also using MCS data.

The primary aim of this research was to investigate ethnic differences in height at 5 years of age. The same ethnic groups were used. Again, the sample was large and broadly representative of the whole UK.

Playing catch up

In contrast to the findings on birthweight, Indian, Pakistani, Black Caribbean and Black African children were taller than White children at age 5. Bangladeshi children were the same as White children. Birthweight was not entirely irrelevant. It was a weak to moderate predictor of height in White, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and African children.

All the measured variables favoured the White group over all ethnic minorities. This is consistent with the suggestion floated towards the end of the first study that what is happening is that a generation is ‘catching up’, earlier generations having been previously thwarted by such factors as poor nutrition in underdeveloped home countries.

Saying that, catch-up growth is likely to explain only a part of the ethnic height differences identified and further research is important here. It is also important to note that taller children are more inclined to obesity and so the height advantage of ethnic minority children might not translate into a health advantage in adulthood.

The links between ethnicity, birthweight and height in childhood are not, then, straightforward or by any means fully understood. It is clear that outcomes associated with different groups are the result of social and not biological characteristics.

The length of time a group has been established in the UK also appears to play a part with at least some suggestion of a generational ‘catch-up’ effect. Though there may be plenty of inequality left to address, that does at least suggest things are moving in the right direction.

Further information

Why does birthweight vary among ethnic groups in the UK? Findings from the Millennium Cohort Study is research by Yvonne Kelly, Lidia Panico, Mel Bartley, Michael Marmot, James Nazroo and Amanda Sacker and is published in the Journal of Public Health.

Ethnic differences in growth in early childhood: an investigation of two potential mechanisms is research by Amanda Sacker and Yvonne Kelly and is published in the European Journal of Public Health.

Photo credit: moinuddin forhad

[1] Ethnic differences in growth in early childhood: an investigation of two potential mechanisms. A. Sacker, Y. Kelly

How well are the kids talking? Ethnic differences in children’s verbal abilities

How well our kids are doing is important to us all. The better they are doing early on in life, the better they’re likely to be doing further down the line as they grow into teenagers and adults. The earlier we can get to grips with any disadvantages or inequalities faced by individuals and groups of people, the sooner we can do something about it. In this research, a team from the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies has been looking at young children’s verbal abilities to see if there are any differences between different ethnic groups in how they are getting on with talking.

Ethnic differences in longitudinal latent verbal profiles in the millennium cohort study is research by Afshin Zilanawala, Yvonne Kelly and Amanda Sacker and is published in the European Journal of Public Health.

Photo credit: U.S. Embassy Pakistan

Get up, get out, get active!

Just what are the long term effects of being a couch potato as a youngster? New research using the  1970 British Cohort Study shows we may reap what we sow if we don’t switch off the television or the Playstation and get ourselves and our kids off the couch and active. Dr Mark Hamer from UCL spoke to Child of our Time about the research.

“Childhood correlates of adult TV viewing time: a 32-year follow-up of the 1970 British Cohort Study”, by Lee Smith, Ben Gardner and Mark Hamer of UCL’s Department of Epidemiology and Public Health. It will be published in a future issue of the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

Child of our Time podcasts are produced by Research Podcasts.

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Can a child’s ethnicity tell us something about asthma?

Asthma and wheezing illness are some of the most common childhood illnesses, and appear to have been on the rise in many developed countries. In the ongoing battle against them, considerable research has looked at the links with the surroundings we live in. From the effects of cold weather to dusty homes and living in polluted cities, hundreds of academics and health professionals have tried to put their finger on what external factors might be playing a role in children’s poor health.

Few researchers have looked to see whether there may be a story to tell about links with a child’s ethnicity and whether certain ethnic groups are at higher risk of wheezing illnesses. But now, as part of a wide-ranging ethnicity research project, a team based at the ESRC International Centre for Lifecourse Studies at UCL has been doing just that, as Lidia Panico explains.

About one in five British children has been diagnosed with asthma by a doctor, according to figures from the Health Survey for England, which also shows that wheezing is most common among Black Caribbean children, while Bangladeshi and Black African children suffer least.

A systematic review of UK studies has also found that South Asian children have lower rates of asthma and wheezing illnesses than the general population. In the US, Black children are twice as likely to suffer from asthma than White children. So why do these ethnic differences exist and can they inform our efforts to tackle the problem?

There are quite a few challenges around research in this area and real evidence is thin on the ground, especially when it comes to very young children. Studies have tended to group children from different ethnic backgrounds together or focus only on school age children. Numbers aside, very few studies have been able to go a step further and try to look at what might be behind any observed differences.

Background and biological factors

In our research, we made use of the Millennium Cohort Study, which has been following the health and development of some 20,000 children born in the UK around the turn of the century. This fantastic study has lots of data. This enabled us to look at a host of background and biological factors that might be at play. We looked at the children when they turned 3 years old.

We were able to look at household income, whether mum and dad had jobs and what those jobs were, mum’s age when she gave birth to the child and whether mum lived on her own.

When it came to potential biological causes, we could look to see if parents were smokers, whether the child shared his or her home with other siblings, potentially increasing the risk of catching common infections, furry pets and whether the child had been breastfed.

Other things taken into consideration were whether English was spoken at home and parents’ migration status.

Survey respondents (usually the mother) were asked whether the child had ever suffered from asthma and whether they had had problems with wheezing in the previous 12 months.

Facts and figures

Around one in ten of the children had suffered from asthma at some point while two in ten had wheezed in the last year. Around a fifth of those who had been wheezy in the last year had had more than four attacks in that period with nearly a quarter of them had their sleep disturbed by wheeze on a weekly basis.

As far as ethnic differences were concerned, Black Caribbeans were around 70 per cent more likely than their White counterparts to have had asthma ( 16.2 per cent compared with 11.6 per cent), while Bangladeshis were much less likely at 5.6 per cent.

When we looked at wheezing in the previous 12 months, more than a quarter of Black Caribbean children had suffered compared with one in five White children, so around 40 per cent more likely. Around half of the disadvantage could be explained by social and economic factors, in particular income and the receipt of benefits.

Once again Bangladeshi children were least likely to have wheezed at less than one in ten , especially if their mother was born abroad and if they were living in a bi-lingual or non-English speaking household.

Black African children had lower asthma and wheezing rates than White children, while Indian and Pakistani children had similar rates to White children.

Lower reported rates

Our research team is inclined to think that the apparent South Asian “advantage” might be due to lower reported rates among the Bangladeshi group and should not be attributed to all Asian groups.

With work in the UK and US suggesting South Asians are more likely to be hospitalised with asthma than White children, there is either a story around levels of severity or under reporting/ under diagnosis among these ethnic groups.

Our data suggests that households that would have the most problems communicating with British health services, (new migrants/those who don’t speak English a home or need the survey translated) are least likely to report asthma and wheeze.

By contrast the Black African group which has a similar migration history to the Bangladeshi group, but where English is spoken more frequently, do not show signs of under-reporting.

Migration status and language are key

In order to avoid potentially misleading reports of low asthma and wheezing illness prevalence in some ethnic groups, we should look carefully at migration history and levels of spoken English, particularly in primary care settings.

Ethnic groups are diverse in terms of the prevalence of asthma and wheezing and in their social and economic profiles.

It is also clear that child health provision needs to be carried out within the unique social, economic and cultural context of each group if progress is to be made.

Further information

Lidia Panico is a researcher based at the French Institute for Demographic Studies.

Ethnic variation in childhood asthma and wheezing illnesses: findings from the Millennium Cohort Study is research published in the International Journal of Epidemiology by Lidia Panico, Mel Bartley, Michael Marmot, James Nazroo, Amanda Sacker and Yvonne Kelly.

Photo credit: KristyFaith