The study reported here explored the associations of body mass index (BMI), socio-economic status (SES), and beverage consumption in a very low-income population. A house-to-house survey was conducted in 2003 of 12,873 Mexican adults. The sample was designed to be representative of the poorest...

Poverty, both absolute and relative, is associated with poorer health. This is of particular concern in middle- and low-income countries facing a significant and growing burden of disease. There has been limited research specifically on whether interventions that increase income may foster...

We present results two years after the end of a group-based parenting intervention tested in a cluster randomized control trial in rural Kenya. The original program consisted of 16 fortnightly village-based sessions over 8 months and had large positive impacts on children's cognition and...

Correlational studies have shown associations between social class and salivary cortisol suggestive of a causal link between childhood poverty and activity of the stress-sensitive hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) system. Using a quasi-experimental design, we evaluated the associations...

Intensive and controversial marketing of infant formula is believed to be responsible for millions of infant deaths in low and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet to date there have been no rigorous analyses that quantify these effects. To estimate the impact of infant formula on infant...

Parents play a crucial role in the promotion of early childhood development, and understanding parental perceptions of early childhood development may help enhance parental investments early in life. To explore this question, caregivers were asked to rank their child's intelligence in comparison...

In many low- and middle-income countries, young children learn a mother tongue or indigenous language at home before entering the formal education system where they will need to understand and speak a country's official language(s). Thus, assessments of children before school age, conducted in a...

Worldwide, 250 million children under five (43 percent) are not meeting their developmental potential because they lack adequate nutrition and cognitive stimulation in early childhood. Several parent support programs have shown significant benefits for children's development, but the programs...

Longitudinal patterns of child development and socioeconomic status are described for a cohort of children in Madagascar surveyed when 3-6 and 7–10 years old. Substantial wealth gradients were found across multiple domains: receptive vocabulary, cognition, sustained attention, and working...