Early Childhood Intervention to Reduce Deficits of Underprivileged Children - Follow-up Study

Emerging evidence suggests that childhood is a sensitive period during which socioeconomic conditions become biologically embedded despite current circumstances during adulthood. Children with socioeconomic disadvantages are vulnerable to numerous health problems later in life, including cardiovascular and respiratory diseases. In both children and adults, the associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and life outcomes are monotonic or graded, such that individuals higher in the socioeconomic hierarchy enjoy better health status and well-being than those individuals one level below.

Socioeconomic disparities in developmental trajectories can be observed in the early years of life and this has necessitated a closer look at the childhood family environment. Families who are confronting socioeconomic struggles also tend to have higher levels of conflict, harsh restrictive parenting styles, chaotic or neglectful parenting, as well as inadequate emotional nurturing. Children reared in family environments marked by these adverse social conditions also tend to show elevated physiological responses to stress.

Continued urban development in Hong Kong has led to a simultaneous increase in economic indices, but also widen the socioeconomic gaps between social groups. Parallel to epidemiological patterns in other countries, the Child Health Survey documented that children from low SES families in Hong Kong were also more likely to suffer from worse physical and psychological health. Early sleep deprivation and overuse of digital devices were also more prevalent among the lower social class which resulted in problematic behaviour and learning.

The original project ("KS Phase One Study") focused on bridging the gap between students from privileged and underprivileged families. Results showed that there were improvements in school readiness and holistic development of children of the underprivileged children during their kindergarten stage. The promising findings worth further follow up to study the long-term benefits and sustainable effects, if any, in different dimensions of child development in longer term. The proposed follow-up study will recruit those subjects who had joined the original study "KS Phase One Study" as main cohort in the 32 Project schools in Sham Shui Po and Tin Shui Wai previously. Most families in those areas were with lower SES.

The hypothesis of the study is early interventions to children, families and schools during the kindergarten stage will have positive effects on shaping the trajectories in children and their families during the primary school stage. Questionnaires will be used collect information including children's health and psychosocial conditions, academic performance, and family demographics. Children general physical health and learning assessments will be carried out on-site. Their medical and health-related events will be tracked through the existing health care system.