Early Childhood Health And Education Outcomes And Childrens Exposure To Multiple Risks In Turkey

This paper considers changes in children's early health and education opportunities and outcomes in Turkey. The study aims to look at changes in health utilization, nutrition, access to early childhood education and school enrollment rates for children between 2003 and 2008. The findings suggest that health utilization has improved over time in these years and access to health care has increasingly become delinked from initial circumstances of children in the household, in parallel to Turkey's expansion of the Health Transformation Program. On the other hand, nutrition outcomes remained correlated with maternal education and household wealth status. Access to early childhood education and care programs also came out to be highly regressive, with only households and children in the top quintile having access to child care programs outside the home. The paper also considers later educational attainment outcomes for older children, by circumstance groups and finds that while some progress has been made in enrollment in basic education in these years, variables that define gender, mother tongue spoken at home and parental education remain significant determinants of early drop-outs as of 2008. In the final section, the paper investigates exposure of a certain small group of children in Turkey to multiple risk factors at the same time, and evaluates the incidence by circumstance group the probability of facing overlapping risks in early childhood. the paper argues that children in these circumstance groups, and that have exposure to multiple risk factors, should be the primary target of social protection and early childhood intervention programs.

Health and Education in Early Childhood presents conceptual issues, research findings, and program and policy implications in promoting well-being in health and education in the first five years of life. Leading researchers in the multidisciplinary fields of early learning and human capital formation explore the themes of the integration of health and education in promoting young children's well-being; the timing of influences on child development; and the focus on multiple levels of strategies to promote healthy early development. Through this, a unique framework is provided to better understand how early childhood health and education predictors and interventions contribute to well-being at individual, family, community and societal levels, and to policy development. Key topics addressed in the chapters include nutritional status, parenting, cognitive development and school readiness, conduct problems and antisocial behavior, obesity, and well-being in later childhood and adulthood.

With child development trajectories thus diverging early in life, pro-equity policies should focus on reaching the most disadvantaged children early, ideally before birth. Turkey, with the active involvement of nongovernmental organizations, has piloted a number of highly successful programs to reach and support disadvantaged children. But it can do more: only 6 percent of the country's total public social spending reaches children below the age of six. About four times more is spent on a middle-aged or elderly person than on a child. --

This volume asks, what is it like to be a child in a country where 25% of the population is under the age of 14? Handling this question through a multidisciplinary lens, the book provides a rich and diverse analysis of different portrayals of childhood in Turkey. From children’s rights to transformation of childhood, from refugee children to host country children living in armed conflict areas, from cultural factors to gene-environment interaction, from parent-focused to child-focused programs, readers will find in-depth and up-to-date information about children living in Turkey from the perspectives of sociology, education, and psychology sciences.

"Education is often seen as a fundamental means to improve economic prospects for individuals from low income settings. However, even with increased emphasis on basic education for all, many individuals fail to achieve basic skills to succeed in life. The book presents evidence that one core reason is that by the time a child is old enough to attend school, there is already a wide disparity in cognitive skills and in emotional and behavioral development among children from households of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Low levels of cognitive development in early childhood strongly correlate with low socio-economic status (as measured by wealth and parental education) as well as malnutrition. These disadvantages are often exacerbated by economic crises. Fortunately, however, as documented in this volume, there are programs that have proven effective in promoting a child's development through caregiver-child interaction and stimulation, and with well designed preschool programs. While preschool programs currently cover a modest share of low income children, expansion of such services to at risk populations is a cost-effective means of improving overall educational achievement. Thus, focused preschool programs can serve as a key investment in a strategy to reduce the transmission of poverty from poor parents to their children."

While much progress has been made on achieving the Millenium Development Goals over the last decade, the number and complexity of global health challenges has persisted. Growing forces for globalization have increased the interconnectedness of the world and our interdependency on other countries, economies, and cultures. Monumental growth in international travel and trade have brought improved access to goods and services for many, but also carry ongoing and ever-present threats of zoonotic spillover and infectious disease outbreaks that threaten all. Global Health and the Future Role of the United States identifies global health priorities in light of current and emerging world threats. This report assesses the current global health landscape and how challenges, actions, and players have evolved over the last decade across a wide range of issues, and provides recommendations on how to increase responsiveness, coordination, and efficiency â€" both within the U.S. government and across the global health field.

Child development comprises children’s cognitive, linguistic, motor, social and emotional development, communication, and self-care skills. Understanding developmental periods means that possible problems or roadblocks can be planned for or prevented. Knowledge of child development is necessary for achieving educational goals and is integral to promoting children’s healthy and timely development. The Handbook of Research on Prenatal, Postnatal, and Early Childhood Development is an essential scholarly reference source that compiles critical findings on children’s growth periods and characteristics as well as the principles that affect their development. Covering a wide range of topics such as at-risk children, early intervention, and support programs, this book is ideally designed for child development specialists, pediatricians, educators, program developers, administrators, psychologists, researchers, academicians, and students. Additionally, the book provides insight and support to health professionals working in various disciplines in the field of child development and health.

The World Health Organization recognizes that injuries are the leading cause of death and disability to children after their first birthday. There is also high morbidity associated with injuries sustained in childhood, often affecting people for the rest of their lives. For every child who dies from injury, there are several thousand who require medical care, many who live with varying degrees of disability. Children and adolescents (0–19 years of age) are at increased risk of mortality and morbidity due to injuries such as road traffic, burns, falls, poisoning, drowning, self-harm and interpersonal violence. There are proven ways to prevent many child injuries, yet there are still gaps in our knowledge. By understanding the impact of determinants of health (i.e., the social and economic environment, the physical environment and a person’s individual characteristics and behaviors), effective prevention interventions can be designed and implemented, with a high return on investment. This Special Issue covers an eclectic range of studies, the common goal of which is to reduce the global burden of child injury-related mortality and morbidity.

Research shows that high-quality Early Childhood Education (ECE) can promote early learning and development and reduce vulnerability to developmental risks. However, there is also evidence that children from 'special needs' groups - children with disabilities or from Indigenous, disadvantaged, non-English speaking, or remote area backgrounds - are simultaneously more likely to be developmentally vulnerable and less likely to participate in ECE. This paper examines the relationship between developmental risk exposure, participation in ECE, and early childhood outcomes. It uses data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to identify the prevalence of risk factors amongst special needs groups, the extent to which at risk preschool children were participating in ECE, and developmental outcomes when the children are aged six to seven years old and in full-time school. Other risk factors investigated include gender, housing stress, poverty, temperament, sole parent families, teenage parents, high television viewing, high or low parental employment, parental health or substance use, parenting skills, and parental conflict.