Reem M Ghandour, Ashley H Hirai, Kristin A Moore, Lara R Robinson, Jennifer W Kaminski, Kelly Murphy, Michael C Lu, Michael D Kogan
Academic pediatrics 2021 JulTo assess the national and state prevalence of being "Healthy and Ready to Learn" (HRL) and associated sociodemographic, health, family and neighborhood factors. Cross-sectional analysis of the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health, a nationally representative parent-reported survey administered by web and paper June 2016 to February 2017. Four domains were constructed from 18 items through confirmatory factor analyses: "Early Learning Skills", "Social-Emotional Development", "Self-Regulation", and "Physical Well-being and Motor Development." Each item and domain were scored according to age-specific standards as "On-Track", "Needs Support", and "At Risk" with overall HRL defined as "On-Track" in all domains for 7565 randomly selected children ages 3 to 5 years. In 2016, 42.2% of children ages 3 to 5 years were considered HRL with the proportion considered "On-Track" ranging from 58.4% for Early Learning Skills to 85.5% for Physical Well-being and Motor Development"; approximately 80% of children were considered "On-Track" in Social-Emotional Development and Self-Regulation, respectively. Sociodemographic differences were mostly non-significant in multivariable analyses. Health, family, and neighborhood factors (ie, special health care needs status/type, parental mental health, reading, singing and storytelling, screen time, adverse childhood experiences, and neighborhood amenities) were associated with HRL. HRL prevalence ranged from 25.5% (NV) to 58.7% (NY), but only 4 states were significantly different from the U.S. overall. Based on this pilot measure, only about 4 in 10 US children ages 3 to 5 years may be considered "Healthy and Ready to Learn." Improvement opportunities exist for multiple, modifiable factors to affect young children's readiness to start school. Published by Elsevier Inc.
Reem M Ghandour, Ashley H Hirai, Kristin A Moore, Lara R Robinson, Jennifer W Kaminski, Kelly Murphy, Michael C Lu, Michael D Kogan. Healthy and Ready to Learn: Prevalence and Correlates of School Readiness among United States Preschoolers. Academic pediatrics. 2021 Jul;21(5):818-829
PMID: 33667721
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