title: Developmental potential in the first 5 years for children in developing countries.
abstract: Many children younger than 5 years in developing countries are exposed to multiple risks, including poverty, malnutrition, poor health, and unstimulating home environments, which detrimentally affect their cognitive, motor, and social-emotional development. There are few national statistics on the development of young children in developing countries. We therefore identified two factors with available worldwide data--the prevalence of early childhood stunting and the number of people living in absolute poverty--to use as indicators of poor development. We show that both indicators are closely associated with poor cognitive and educational performance in children and use them to estimate that over 200 million children under 5 years are not fulfilling their developmental potential. Most of these children live in south Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. These disadvantaged children are likely to do poorly in school and subsequently have low incomes, high fertility, and provide poor care for their children, thus contributing to the intergenerational transmission of poverty.
authors.affiliation: Centre for International Child Health, Institute of Child Health, University College London, UK. s.mcgregor@ich.ucl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sally
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Grantham-McGregor
authors.forename: Yin Bun
authors.initials: YB
authors.lastname: Cheung
authors.forename: Santiago
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Cueto
authors.forename: Paul
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Glewwe
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Richter
authors.forename: Barbara
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Strupp
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition / Q000145:classification*; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D003906:Developing Countries; D002658:Developmental Disabilities / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology*; D004522:Educational Status; D005260:Female; D006130:Growth Disorders / Q000150:complications*; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D011203:Poverty; D012307:Risk Factors