Individual child level assessments find a link between neighborhood physical environment and early child development

Bell, M. ., Turrell, G. ., Beesley, B. ., Boruff, B. ., Trapp, G. ., Zubrick, S. ., & Christian, H. . (2020). Children’s neighbourhood physical environment and early development: An individual child level linked data study. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health. https://doi.org/http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech-2019-212686

Studies investigating the role of the neighborhood physical environment on early child development are generally conducted at the neighborhood level. Such studies cannot account for individual variation in exposure to neighborhood environment features. This current study addressed this issue by examining the association between measures of child development and neighborhood physical features measured at the individual child level.

Researchers paired individual child-development data on over 5000 children (age 4-5) with physical features of their neighborhood. The physical features measured included housing density, street connectedness, traffic exposure, home-yard space, green space, public transport, and access to child-oriented services (e.g., early childhood education and care, schools and healthcare). Geographic Information Systems were used to identify neighborhood physical features within a 1600-meter area around the child's home address. Child development data was based on teacher-completed assessments, using the Australian version of the Early Development Instrument (AvEDI). This 104-item assessment addresses five developmental domains: physical health and well- being, social competence, emotional maturity, language and cognitive skills (school- based), and communication and general knowledge. For this study, AvEDI scores in the physical, social, and emotional domains were used to identify individual children as being “vulnerable” or “not vulnerable” in each of these areas of development. Children scoring in the bottom 10% (based on national data) of any of the three domains were considered to be vulnerable in that area of development.

Results showed that features of the neighborhood physical environment have a weak but significant association with early childhood development. Features of the physical environment decreasing the odds of physical vulnerability were increased neighborhood residential density, presence of railway station, and higher counts of playgroups and kindergartens.  A feature increasing the odds of physical and social vulnerability was larger areas of neighborhood home-yard space. This finding was unexpected, as other studies attest to the importance of backyards for fostering play and physical development in young children. This unexpected finding may be due to the fact that home-yard space was measured as the total area of all yards in the child's neighborhood, rather than a child's own back yard. Also, the home-yard space measure did not address quality of the space or child's use of the space. A feature lowering the odds of social vulnerability was the presence of high-quality green space. This was not surprising because quality green spaces provide opportunities for outdoor play and social interaction. Such opportunities facilitate children's social competence. Increased road traffic exposure increased the odds of social and emotional vulnerability. Children with the highest odds of vulnerability on all three domains were boys, Aboriginal children, and children living in areas with the highest levels of sociodemographic disadvantage.

Overall, this research suggests that the neighborhood physical environment does influence early child development, especially in the area of physical well- being. While only a few features of the neighborhood physical environment were associated with social and emotional development, it's important to note that because of “the relatively long-term nature of the neighbourhood physical environment, even small effects could have a significant impact on child development over time.”

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