INECHD

International Network for Early Childhood Health Development

 Partecipanti

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'The general aim of the INECHD is to strengthen collaborative interdisciplinary research and knowledge transfer on early childhood health development and well-being. Recent research from numerous disciplines clearly highlights the importance of early childhood development (pregnancy to school entry) for the prevention of long term health and social adjustment problems. Large interdisciplinary-international research projects are needed to understand the interplay between bio-psycho-social mechanisms and to find effective preventive interventions. The network brings together partners from three continents: Europe (University College Dublin-Ireland and Inserm, France), North America (Laval and Montreal universities in Canada) and South America (Pontificia Universidade Catolica do Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil and Universidad Alberto Hurtado in Chile) to initiate, reinforce and extend research and knowledge transfer collaborations. Leaders of the program have extensive experience of longitudinal-experimental studies and international collaborations. Staff exchange will enable partners to share data banks from large population-based longitudinal studies and experimental interventions, plan new studies and develop a web-based tool to transfer best practice knowledge to service providers and policy makers in four of the European Community languages: English, French, Portuguese and Spanish. Over a four year period a total of 48 researchers will benefit from secondments. European researchers will spend a total of 200 months in North and South America, while South and North Americans will also spend a total of 200 months in Europe. An emphasis will be placed on training early career researchers for international and interdisciplinary longitudinal-experimental studies on early childhood development.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

Recent research has highlighted the importance of early childhood development to prevent long-term health and social adjustment problems. An EU-funded project is building international collaborations to develop effective preventive interventions.

Descrizione progetto (Article)

The project, 'International network for early childhood health development' (INECHD), brings together partners from Europe, North America and South America to extend research and bring about knowledge transfer. Ultimately, the hope is that researchers from these countries will collaborate on research projects on childhood development.

Programme leaders have extensive experience in longitudinal studies and international collaboration. Through staff exchanges, partners have had the opportunity to share data from large, population-based longitudinal studies and experimental interventions. They also have been able to plan new studies and develop a web-based encyclopaedia. The purpose of the encyclopaedia is to share best practices with service providers and policy makers in four European community languages: English, French, Portuguese, and Spanish.

During the first two years of the project, 35 exchanges were organised and eight papers by early-career researchers were published in high-impact scientific journals. Among South American researchers, exchanges between Brazil and Chile focused on helping to plan longitudinal studies and evaluations of early childhood interventions.

Another important outcome of the project was the completion of a report called 'Early developmental trajectories of health related behaviours and their risk factors.' An internal meeting on models of early childhood services was also organised with presenters from Brazil, Chile, France, Ireland, Finland, The Netherlands, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Moving forward, the participating countries will continue to collaborate and share knowledge. The long-term goal is for this work to enrich the European community as a whole.