What happens next? Sustained impacts of early childhood interventions in low- and middle-income countries

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

An estimated 250 million children (43%) under age 5 in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) experience compromised early childhood development (ECD) due to poverty, poor nutrition, sanitation, or hygiene, and inadequate psychosocial stimulation (Black et al., 2017). Globally, interventions that focus on promoting responsive stimulation and nutrition education are effective at improving short-term ECD outcomes in LMIC settings (Aboud & Yousafzai, 2015; Jeong et al., 2018). Interventions targeting improvements in sanitation and hygiene have been less studied to date, though there is evidence that water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions also have impacts on short-term ECD outcomes (Tofail et al. 2018). There are increasing calls to expand interventions to improve child development in LMIC settings in the hopes that early intervention can place children on more positive life course trajectories and reduce the negative effects of poverty. However, there is very little evidence of the medium or long-term impacts of either of these types of interventions, particularly in LMIC settings (Jeong et al., 2021, Bowen at el. 2012).
This paper symposium will gather recent experimental evidence from follow-up studies of different types of ECD interventions in India, Bangladesh, Chile and Kenya. Papers in this session include studies that followed up children between 15 months and 5 years after initial intervention completion. The goal of the symposium will be to compare findings across new follow-up studies to inform the design of interventions to improve children’s outcomes across the life course.

Sub Unit

• Solicited Content: Global South

Chairs

• Lia C.H. Fernald, University of California - Berkeley

• Joshua Jeong, Harvard University

Individual Presentations

• A 7-year follow-up of an early water, sanitation, hygiene, and nutrition intervention in rural Bangladesh - Fahmida Tofail, International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Presenting Author: Helen Osborne Pitchik, University of California - Berkeley; Abul Shoab, International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Mahfuza Islam; Rizwana Khan, International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Peter J. Winch, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Stephen P. Luby, Stanford University; Md. Mahbubur Rahman, International Center for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh; Lia C.H. Fernald, University of California - Berkeley

• Sustained two-year impacts of Msingi Bora, an evidence-based group-based parenting intervention in rural Kenya - Italo Lopez Garcia, University of Southern California; Presenting Author: Jill E Luoto, University of Southern California; Frances E Aboud, Centre universitaire de santé McGill; Lia C.H. Fernald, University of California - Berkeley

• Effects of Early Stimulation and Enhanced Preschool: Pathways to Effective Learning - Orazio Attanasio, London's Global University; Jere Behrman, University of Pennsylvania; Monimalika Day; Sally Grantham-McGregor, University College London; Prachi Gupta; Presenting Author: Pamela Jervis; Prerna Makkar; Costas Meghir; Angus Phimister

• Impacts of a Large-Scale Parenting Program: Experimental Evidence from Chile - Pedro Carneiro; Emanuela Galasso, World Bank - District of Columbia; Presenting Author: Italo Lopez Garcia, University of Southern California; Miguel Cordero, Universidad de Chile; Paula Bedregal