ArticleSSM - population health2021
Pre-school childcare and inequalities in child development.
Article in SSM - population health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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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.
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.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- Early Formal Childcare and Adolescent Psychological Wellbeing in the Millennium Cohort Study: The Role of Socio-economic Position.Child psychiatry and human development · 2026Article
- Center-Based Childcare Access to Health Screenings and Developmental Assessments in U.S. Children from Birth to Five.Maternal and child health journal · 2025Article
- Early childcare and developmental delay risk at 3.5 years: Insights from the French ELFE cohort.European journal of pediatrics · 2024Article
- The potential of early years' childcare to reduce mental health inequalities of school age children in Scotland.SSM - population health · 2024Article
- Continuing education on child development in primary care: healthcare workers' perspectives.Revista da Escola de Enfermagem da U S P · 2023Article
- Emotional quality of early education programs improves language learning: A within-child across context design.Child development · 2022Article
- Associations between urban birth or childhood trauma and first-episode schizophrenia mediated by low IQ.Schizophrenia (Heidelberg, Germany) · 2022Article
- Early childhood education and care (ECEC) during COVID-19 boosts growth in language and executive function.Infant and child developmentArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Centre-based childcare may benefit pre-school children and alleviate inequalities in early childhood development, but evidence on socio-emotional and physical health outcomes is limited. Data were from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (n = 14,376). Inverse-probability weighting was used to estimate confounder-adjusted population-average effects of centre and non-centre-based childcare (compared to parental care only) between ages 26-31 months on (age 3): internalising and externalising symptoms, pro-social behaviour, independence, emotional dysregulation, vocabulary, school readiness, and body mass index. To assess impacts on inequalities, controlled direct effects of low parental education and lone parenthood on all outcomes were estimated under two hypothetical scenarios: 1) universal take-up of centre-based childcare; and 2) parental care only. On average, non-centre based childcare improved vocabulary and centre-based care improved school readiness, with little evidence of other benefits. However, socio-economic inequalities were observed for all outcomes and were attenuated in scenario 1 (universal take-up). For example, inequalities in externalising symptoms (according to low parental education) were reduced from a confounder-adjusted standard deviation difference of 7.8 (95% confidence intervals: 6.7-8.8), to 1.7 (0.6-2.7). Inequalities by parental education in scenario 2 (parental care only) were wider than in scenario 1 for externalising symptoms (at 3.4; 2.4-4.4), and for emotional dysregulation and school readiness. Inequalities by lone parenthood, which were smaller, fell in scenario 1, and fell further in scenario 2. Universal access to centre-based pre-school care may alleviate inequalities, while restricted access (e.g. during lockdown for a pandemic such as Covid-19) may widen some inequalities in socioemotional and cognitive development.
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Registered trials
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