Neighborhood Poverty Impacts Children's Physical Health and Well-Being Over Time: Evidence From the Early Development Instrument

Abstract

Research Findings: The purpose of this study was to investigate how neighborhoods and neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage impact school readiness over time. School readiness was measured using the Early Development Instrument (EDI) for 3 populations of kindergartners in 2001, 2003, and 2005 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada. EDI results revealed that mean scores for the EDI domains of (a) physical health and well-being and (b) communication and general knowledge have been decreasing over time, although this varied according to neighborhood. A derived summary measure of socioeconomic disadvantage at the neighborhood level was significantly associated with declining scores in the EDI domain of physical health and well-being. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest a need for policy and programs that address the underlying determinants of poor school readiness scores, such as socioeconomic disadvantage at the neighborhood level.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to acknowledge Sue Delanoy, Fleur Macqueen Smith, and the Understanding the Early Years (UEY) study staff; Craig Silliphant for editorial assistance; the Saskatoon Public School Division and the Greater Saskatoon Catholic School Division for their cooperation; and Human Resources and Social Development Canada (HRSDC) for funding the UEY study. All views expressed in this report are our own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of HRSDC or the Government of Canada.

Notes

¹The LICO is a standard used by Statistics Canada to compare wages and living expenses, whereby the value is the percentage of income that an average family spends on necessities, which includes shelter, food, and clothing. A family falls below the LICO if the level of income is such that a typical family would spend more than 20% of its average income on necessities. This value is readjusted for community size and inflation.

²Aboriginal status of the child is proxy-reported by the kindergarten teacher. In the Canadian context, generally, a declaration of Aboriginal status would involve a child having a parent of Aboriginal ancestry (i.e., Registered Indian, Treaty Indian, or Metis).

³Developers of the EDI include these skills as special skills: numeracy, literacy, arts, music, athletics/dance, problem solving, and other. Each of these skills is scored as yes or no.

⁴Developers of the EDI consider special problems to include physical disability, visual impairment, hearing impairment, speech impairment, learning disability, emotional problem, behavior problem, and problems at home. These are scored the same as special skills.

Note. Data are M (SD).

Note. LICO = low-income cut-off.

*p < .05, two-tailed. **p < .01, two-tailed.