Evidence map›Paper›PMID 25638660›Full record

ReviewLancet (London, England)2015

The science of early adversity: is there a role for large institutions in the care of vulnerable children?

Anne E Berens, Charles A Nelson

Open access · greenAbstract readReview
In one paragraph

Review in Lancet (London, England), 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 37 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
37citing papers in PubMed
23.7field-weighted citation impact, top 1% of its field
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

37 citing papers in PubMed, 160 citations in OpenAlex.

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  6. Rates of out-of-home care among children in Canada: an analysis of national administrative child welfare data.Health promotion and chronic disease prevention in Canada : research, policy and practice · 2024
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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.

Anne E BerensHarvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
Charles A NelsonHarvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA; Harvard Center on the Developing Child, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Cambridge, MA, USA. Electronic address: charles.nelson@childrens.harvard.edu.
Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center · USHarvard University · US

Funding

The Relation Between Early Psychosocial Deprivation and Mental Health at 12 YearsR01MH091363 · NIMH · UNIV OF MARYLAND, COLLEGE PARK · PI FOX, NATHAN A, NELSON, CHARLES ALEXANDER · 2010 to 2024
$9.2M
NIMH NIH HHS MH091363NIMH NIH HHS R01 MH091363
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

It has been more than 80 years since researchers in child psychiatry first documented developmental delays among children separated from family environments and placed in orphanages or other institutions. Informed by such findings, global conventions, including the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, assert a child's right to care within a family-like environment that offers individualised support. Nevertheless, an estimated 8 million children are presently growing up in congregate care institutions. Common reasons for institutionalisation include orphaning, abandonment due to poverty, abuse in families of origin, disability, and mental illness. Although the practice remains widespread, a robust body of scientific work suggests that institutionalisation in early childhood can incur developmental damage across diverse domains. Specific deficits have been documented in areas including physical growth, cognitive function, neurodevelopment, and social-psychological health. Effects seem most pronounced when children have least access to individualised caregiving, and when deprivation coincides with early developmental sensitive periods. Offering hope, early interventions that place institutionalised children into families have afforded substantial recovery. The strength of scientific evidence imparts urgency to efforts to achieve deinstitutionalisation in global child protection sectors, and to intervene early for individual children experiencing deprivation.

Indexed as

Child WelfareBrainChildChild DevelopmentChild, InstitutionalizedDeinstitutionalizationDevelopmental DisabilitiesHumansInstitutionalizationOrphanagesSocial Support

Identifiers

PMID25638660
PMCPMC9594997
OpenAlexW2145002220

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
LicenceTDM
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.