Children’s HealthWatch researchers have found that children living in households with food insecurity, are more likely to be at developmental risk during their first three years of life, compared to similar households that are not food insecure. In the sample of 2,010 families, the researchers found 21 percent reported food insecurity. The results of the analyses revealed that children from food-insecure households, compared with those from food-secure households, were two thirds more likely to experience developmental risks.

‘Providing nutritional and developmental interventions to young children and their families is a proactive step that might decrease the need for later, more extensive interventions for developmentally or behaviourally impaired children of school age,’ said lead author Ruth Rose- Jacobs, ScD, an assistant professor of paediatrics at BUSM and a research scientist at BMC. ‘Interventions for food insecurity and developmental risk are available and overall have been successful. Linking families to the Food Stamp Program and/or the Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children is an important intervention that should be recommended if indicated by risk surveillance or developmental screening,’ she adds.