Intervening in early childhood to ameliorate social disadvantage
Lynn Kemp, Elizabeth Harris, Teresa Anderson
Centre for Health Equity Training Research and Evaluation
Contact Email:   l.kempunsw.edu.au

"Societies and governments have an obligation to the future to devise systems that ensure effective parenting, [and] support good early childhood development." There is bipartisan political agreement that all children have equal opportunity for optimal development in the early years. Despite this, health is not equally distributed in our community. Children born to families living in areas of disadvantage do not have the same opportunity for good health as those living in more advantaged areas.

Home visiting programs comprising intensive and sustained visits over the entire first two years of life (‘sustained home visiting’ or SHV) show promise as interventions to promote child health, family functioning and social inclusion, and ameliorate disadvantage.

To date, however, no trials of SHV have been conducted that quantified the outcomes for ‘at risk’ families who have the additional contextual risk of living in an area of known disadvantage. Collective social functioning and shared norms, values and interests in local areas can modify the outcomes of interventions aimed at changing individual behaviour. This paper will discuss the issues faced in undertaking a randomised controlled trial of SHV for children, mothers and families living in an area of known disadvantage.

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