Report 2/2010
Early Years and Education Task Group Report: Childhood development, education and health inequalities by Alan Dyson, Jane Tunstill, Helen Roberts, Clyde Hertzman, Ziba Vagheri

Early Years and Education Task Group Report: Childhood development, education and health inequalities

.pdfTask Group 1: Early Years and Education - Full .pdfTask Group 1: Early Years and Education - Summary
Summary

As part of the Strategic Review of Health Inequalities in England, aka 'Fair Society Healthy Lives': (Marmot Review), a number of expert Task Groups were set up to provide evidence and preliminary policy proposals in key areas of interest for the Review. This element of the work came under the umbrella of the 'Working Committee 1'.

Working Committee 1 (WC 1) was asked to identify new evidence in the key policy areas where action is likely to be most effective in reducing health inequalities in the short (2010–15), medium (2016–19) and long term (2020 and beyond). WC 1 assessed evidence about the efficacy of interventions to reduce health inequalities in nine policy areas:

  1. Early child development and education
  2. Employment arrangements and working conditions
  3. Social protection
  4. Built environment
  5. Sustainable development
  6. Economic analysis
  7. Delivery systems and mechanisms
  8. Priority public health conditions
  9. Social inclusion and social mobility.

This Committee made recommendations identifying potentially effective actions in reducing health inequalities for Working Committees 2 and 3 to develop. The Committee ran from January to May 2009.

The Early Years and Education Task Group report, 'Childhood development, education and health inequalities', focused on the ways in which children live, grow up and learn through their interactions with a wide range of interconnected environments – including:

  • the family;
  • residential communities;
  • relational communities;
  • and the environment of child development services (such as the childcare centres or the schools that children attend).

Each of these environments is situated in a broad socioeconomic context that is shaped by factors at the local, national, and global level.