Examining the social determinants of childrens developmental health: protocol for building a pan-Canadian population-based monitoring system for early childhood development

摘要

IntroductionEarly childhood is a key period to establish policies and practices that optimise children's health and development, but Canada lacks nationally representative data on social indicators of children's well-being. To address this gap, the Early Development Instrument (EDI), a teacher-administered questionnaire completed for kindergarten-age children, has been implemented across most Canadian provinces over the past 10 years. The purpose of this protocol is to describe the Canadian Neighbourhoods and Early Child Development (CanNECD) Study, the aims of which are to create a pan-Canadian EDI database to monitor trends over time in children's developmental health and to advance research examining the social determinants of health.