Stewart, Emma;
Pearce, Anna;
Given, Joanne;
Gilbert, Ruth;
Brophy, Sinead;
Cookson, Richard;
Hardelid, Pia;
... Dundas, Ruth; + view all
(2023)
Identifying opportunities for upstream evaluations relevant to child and maternal health: a UK policy-mapping review.
Archives of Disease in Childhood
10.1136/archdischild-2022-325219.
(In press).
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Abstract
OBJECTIVE: Interventions to tackle the social determinants of health can improve outcomes during pregnancy and early childhood, leading to better health across the life course. Variation in content, timing and implementation of policies across the 4 UK nations allows for evaluation. We conducted a policy-mapping review (1981-2021) to identify relevant UK early years policies across the social determinants of health framework, and determine suitable candidates for evaluation using administrative data. METHODS: We used open keyword and category searches of UK and devolved Government websites, and hand searched policy reviews. Policies were rated and included using five criteria: (1) Potential for policy to affect maternal and child health outcomes; (2) Implementation variation across the UK; (3) Population reach and expected effect size; (4) Ability to identify exposed/eligible group in administrative data; (5) Potential to affect health inequalities. An expert consensus workshop determined a final shortlist. RESULTS: 336 policies and 306 strategy documents were identified. Policies were mainly excluded due to criteria 2-4, leaving 88. The consensus workshop identified three policy areas as suitable candidates for natural experiment evaluation using administrative data: pregnancy grants, early years education and childcare, and Universal Credit. CONCLUSION: Our comprehensive policy review identifies valuable opportunities to evaluate sociostructural impacts on mother and child outcomes. However, many potentially impactful policies were excluded. This may lead to the inverse evidence law, where there is least evidence for policies believed to be most effective. This could be ameliorated by better access to administrative data, staged implementation of future policies or alternative evaluation methods.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Identifying opportunities for upstream evaluations relevant to child and maternal health: a UK policy-mapping review |
| Location: | England |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1136/archdischild-2022-325219 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/archdischild-2022-325219 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2023. Re-use permitted under CC BY. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Unported (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits others to copy, redistribute, remix, transform and build upon this work for any purpose, provided the original work is properly cited, a link to the licence is given, and indication of whether changes were made. See: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
| Keywords: | Child development, child health |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > UCL GOS Institute of Child Health > Population, Policy and Practice Dept |
| URI: | https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10167961 |
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