There is growing interest in engaging not only mothers but also fathers in parenting programs to improve nurturing care, psychosocial support, and early childhood development. However, few studies have explored how mothers perceive and benefit from participating in parenting interventions alongside their partners. This study explored mothers’ experiences during the pilot implementation of Familia Bora , a couples-based parenting program delivered in six communities in Mwanza, Tanzania (July-November 2024). In-depth interviews were conducted with mothers at baseline, midline, and endline using both random and purposive sampling. A total of 22 mothers participated in endline interviews, of whom 15 (68%) were purposively re-interviewed from the baseline sample to enable longitudinal qualitative analysis of perceived changes over time. Interviews explored mothers’ perceptions of changes in parenting practices, gender roles and attitudes, couples’ relationships, maternal mental health, and complementary feeding practices. Mothers commonly reported improvements across all domains. They described increased use of responsive caregiving and early learning activities, reduced harsh discipline, and improved nutrition knowledge and child feeding practices. Mothers also highlighted greater father involvement in childcare and more supportive couples’ relationship dynamics, which they perceived as reducing their caregiving burden and supporting their mental health. Overall, engaging fathers through couples-based parenting interventions may catalyze shifts within households that benefit mothers through improved caregiving practices, stronger partner relationships, and more nurturing family environments. These findings highlight the potential of father-inclusive parenting programs to support maternal, child, and family well-being.
Valencia J. Lambert, Alina Bhojani, Gabriel Sangarara et al.
This dissertation investigated how motivation and constraints relate to participation in outdoor and community recreation among children with disabilities and adults who are blind or visually impaired. Although outdoor recreation is associated with important physical, psychological, and social benefits, people with disabilities continue to participate at lower rates than their peers without disabilities, and prior work shows that barriers extend well beyond physical access to include structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal constraints. Drawing on the Constraint–Negotiation Model (CNM) and social cognitive theory, this dissertation addressed gaps in multivariate research and life-course perspectives by examining whether and how motivations, perceived constraints, and participation are linked in two distinct but complementary populations. Study 1 used a cross-sectional online survey of parents and guardians of children with disabilities who are customers of a large Mid-Atlantic municipal park system. Parents reported consistently high motivation across achievement, social, and nature domains, and these motivational orientations were broadly similar across demographic groups. However, neither demographic characteristics nor motivation subscales significantly predicted 30-day facility use, revealing a clear disconnect between strong parental endorsement of recreation benefits and actual utilization. Study 2 surveyed adults who are blind or visually impaired across North America about their motivations, perceived intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints, participation in outdoor recreation, and health-related quality of life. Participants reported moderate motivation and moderate constraints, with constraint subscales strongly interrelated. That is, structural constraints showed modest negative associations with participation, and intrapersonal and structural constraints had small negative associations with health-related quality of life. In contrast, motivation and participation frequency had low correlation with health outcomes. Taken together, the studies suggested that motivation is not the primary limiting factor in these disability contexts. Instead, persistent structural, interpersonal, and intrapersonal barriers were more consequential for both participation and well-being. Theoretically, the findings extended CNM and social cognitive perspectives by underscoring the need to incorporate negotiation-efficacy, perceptions of environmental predictability, and the cumulative psychological impact of repeated exposure to barriers. Practically, the results pointed toward organizational and environmental changes, rather than attempts to “boost” already high motivation, as the most promising pathways to more equitable participation. Recommended priorities included improving the accessibility of facilities and programs, expanding adapted equipment and transportation options, enhancing staff disability competence and inclusive communication, partnering with families and adults with visual impairments to co-design programs, and creating socially supportive, group-based opportunities. Across the lifespan, reducing constraints and strengthening support for negotiation appeared essential for translating motivation into meaningful, sustained engagement in outdoor and community recreation for people with disabilities.
Child mortality remains a pressing public health concern in Nigeria, with significant implications for gender equality and national development. Parental leave policies play a crucial role in reducing child mortality rates by ensuring that infants receive adequate care, breastfeeding, and medical attention in the critical early months of life. These policies simultaneously serve as a proxy measure for gender equality, particularly in terms of redistributing caregiving responsibilities, supporting women’s workforce participation, and equal contribution to national development. However, how parental leave policies are operationalised across public and private sectors not only vary and poorly understood, but also how this relates to gender equality has not been adequately interrogated. How does parental leave policy in Nigeria’s public and private sectors impact child mortality rates? What is their variation(s), if any, and how do they influence gender equality? This paper examines the relationship between child mortality, parental leave, and gender equality in Nigeria’s public and private sectors. The study adopts Motherism and human capital theory as its theoretical guide, secondary data to explore disparities in leave entitlements, workplace policies, gender equality, and their broader socio-economic implications.
Introduction Climate change poses significant health risks and children are particularly vulnerable to its effects. In 2024, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) updated its clinical recommendations for climate-informed care in a policy statement, urging pediatricians to incorporate climate change counseling into clinical practice. In alignment with this policy, Dartmouth Health embarked on an 18-month initiative to develop and pilot test a novel Climate-Informed Pediatric Care (CIPC) toolkit to increase uptake of the AAP policy statement’s clinical recommendations in general pediatric practices. Methods A short educational session was offered and a toolkit of resources was provided to seven community practices throughout the health system. Changes from baseline were assessed by pre- and post-implementation surveys. Toolkit use was measured manually and through reports generated from the electronic medical record. Results Overall, our findings show that a climate-informed care toolkit holds promise in helping busy clinicians incorporate climate counseling into practice. There was improved overall confidence in having climate-informed conversations with patients after the intervention, and about half of study participants reported using at least one toolkit item. Conclusion Though further study is needed, the findings from this pilot show a climate-informed care toolkit has the potential to help pediatricians align with the current AAP guidelines.
Cheryl Anderson, Robert McLellan, Carl Cooley et al.
Objective: Neuroinflammation and immune dysregulation are implicated in the etiology of autism spectrum disorder (ASD).This study investigated the relationship between inflammatory markers-pan-immune-inflammation value (PIV), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR), neutrophil-to-lymphocyte-platelet ratio (NLPR), and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (MLR)-and ASD.Methods: A total of 161 children aged 2-6 years were included (87 ASD, 74 controls).Assessments comprised the Childhood Autism Rating Scale, the Ankara Development Screening Inventory, and complete blood count (CBC).Results: The ASD group showed significantly higher NLR, SII, PIV, NLPR, and MLR than controls.Receiver operating characteristic analyses revealed moderate discriminatory performance, with the highest area under the curve for MLR (0.799), followed by PIV (0.775).In age-and sex-adjusted logistic regression, PIV was the strongest independent marker of ASD, followed by NLPR, both with adequate model fit.MLR showed a significant but borderline calibration, whereas NLR and SII demonstrated inadequate goodness-of-fit and should be interpreted with caution.PIV, NLR, SII, and MLR were also associated with autism severity, independent of age, sex, special education attendance, and developmental delay; NLPR was not.Conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first study to investigate PIV and NLPR in ASD.CBC-derived inflammatory indices, particularly PIV, may have potential as adjunctive markers of case-control differences and clinical severity in early childhood ASD.However, given the moderate performance and single-center retrospective design, these markers should be regarded as candidate adjunctive indicators of immune dysregulation rather than standalone diagnostic tools, requiring prospective validation in independent cohorts before clinical translation.
İrem Aktar-Songür, Ahmet Özaslan, Samet Can Demirci et al.
Juvenile delinquency is a growing issue of public safety in Bangladesh, so far addressed as a criminal justice, or child-welfare issue. Much less is known about its influence on the security of people and their communities in their daily lives. This study is an attempt to highlight the factors which are responsible for Juvenile delinquency and the impact of Juvenile delinquency in wider frame of non-traditional security. The study focuses on a qualitative exploratory approach with two part groups of 100 in-depth interviews with parents, guardians and rehabilitated juvenile offenders and 20 key informant interviews with professional from the juvenile justice, law enforcement, child protection and social welfare sectors in Dhaka and Gazipur. The findings show that factors that contribute to delinquency do not exist independently, but are interrelated, such as the family, economic difficulties, school involvement, peer and gang pressure, and exposure to drugs and negative digital content. The vulnerabilities are a source of fear, restricted mobility, social isolation and a strain on public institutions, which creates a loss of community trust. They refer to the need for a comprehensive prevention, rehabilitation, reintegration and child-sensitive justice response to the study.
Rasel Abedin, Habiba Akter, Kazi Nishat Aunjum et al.
Abstract Community-based interventions (CBIs) are widely used to prevent childhood obesity, yet evaluating their causal effects is challenging due to multi-level interactions and variation across individuals. Standard statistical approaches often have difficulty addressing these complexities, which can produce biased estimates. To address this, we propose a causal machine learning framework that integrates causal discovery, causal inference, and tree-based models to estimate individual treatment effects and examine heterogeneity in program outcomes. Using data from seven CBI programs involving more than 7000 participants, we first applied causal discovery to identify relationships between children’s demographic and behavioral characteristics, finding links between body mass index (BMI), age, sex, and dietary behaviors such as takeaway food consumption. Individual treatment effect estimation suggested notable differences in intervention outcomes across participants, with age emerging as an important moderator of effectiveness. Tree-based models further highlighted subpopulation characteristics associated with these variations. Our findings suggest that CBI effectiveness is not uniform across children, and that identifying sources of heterogeneity can support the design of more targeted and age-sensitive prevention strategies. While demonstrated here in the context of childhood obesity, the framework provides a generalizable approach for analyzing heterogeneous treatment effects in complex, community-based interventions.
There are several challenges in the learning and socialization of autistic children in the school environment, but there are also many opportunities for development and interaction. This article reflects on the challenges and possibilities involved in the educational inclusion of people with pervasive developmental disorders in early childhood education. Inclusive education guarantees students with physical, sensory, or intellectual disabilities the same right to education as other students, seeking to provide individuals with special educational needs with conditions that foster their intellectual development and integration into society. The research included field studies conducted at the Joana Maria dos Anjos Meireles Municipal Early Childhood Education Center, located in the municipality of Rondonópolis, Mato Grosso, Brazil. Questionnaires and interviews were used to examine the realities experienced in the education of autistic students in early childhood education, as well as the actions taken by teachers during the teaching and learning process. The findings indicate that the challenges associated with including autistic students emerge as early as the first years of early childhood education. The main challenges are related to teachers’ lack of preparation, the lack of appropriate teaching resources, and the need to develop environments and methodologies that spark autistic students’ interest. The study identified considerable efforts by teachers to find strategies that support learning and inclusion. These professionals seek methodologies and teaching resources to stimulate autistic students’ learning and report that they continually pursue professional development to improve their classroom practices.
Objectives Rates of emotional and behavioural problems (EBP) in adolescence are high and rising, increasing pressure on psychosocial care systems. Professionals working in these systems have excellent insights in the measures needed. Of these, the most urgent and implementable ones have already been elucidated. Our current aim was to identify measures and interventions to improve psychosocial care for adolescents with EBP that professionals perceived as highly urgent but not yet feasible to implement, revealing potential barriers for implementation. Methods We used Concept mapping, a participatory mixed-method approach, combining qualitative data collection with quantitative analysis. Overall, 33 professionals from 17 institutions participated. Results Participants proposed 43 measures/interventions, that could be categorized in five clusters. Of these, 13 were identified as highly urgent but not feasible. Most belonged to clusters related to school system changes, improvement of transparency and functioning of the system of care, and legislative conditions for adolescents with EBP. Conclusion Findings highlight implementation challenges related to school systems, workforce capacity, and system fragmentation. Addressing these challenges will require coordinated system-level approaches and long-term commitment to improve adolescent psychosocial care.
Kateřina Paclíková, Lucia Bosáková, Zuzana Dankulincová Veselská et al.
Children’s lives are increasingly shaped by digital environments that influence learning, social relationships, daily routines, and exposure to both opportunities and adversity. However, existing approaches often examine digital experiences, self-regulation, movement behaviors, and social context separately. This paper introduces ReDiKid (Resilient Kid in the Digital World), a developmental-systems framework for understanding resilience in late childhood, with a primary focus on children aged approximately 9–11 years. ReDiKid conceptualizes resilience as a higher-order, adversity-activated process through which adaptive functioning is maintained, restored, or reorganized over time. The framework integrates four interacting domains: psychophysiological, behavioral, contextual, and digital. It proposes four cross-domain pathways, self-regulatory capacity, movement regulation, social buffering, and digital competence, through which resources and vulnerabilities may shape responses to adversity, recovery, and subsequent adaptation. The framework distinguishes digital adversity from normative digital demands and differentiates resilience from competence, adaptive functioning, and multidimensional wellbeing. Six directional and empirically contestable propositions specify expected within-person, between-person, event-level, and contextual patterns, including conditions under which the propositions would not be supported. ReDiKid also recognizes that pathway operation may vary according to developmental stage, sex and gender, structural inequality, cultural context, neurodivergence, disability, and patterns of digital access. To support empirical testing, ReDiKid outlines a multimodal methodological architecture combining intensive longitudinal designs, ecological momentary assessment, wearable sensing, passive digital tracking, contextual data, and advanced longitudinal and multilevel analyses. ReDiKid provides a common conceptual foundation for coordinated study-specific protocols and cumulative theory development concerning child resilience in digitally mediated contexts.
Jana Pelclová, Leen d'Haenens, Marc N. Potenza et al.
