Risk and Protective Factors Associated with Early Childhood Development among 3- to 4-Year Old Children in Nigeria

Abstract

For children that overcome Nigeria’s high child mortality rate, there is the additional and less-obvious hurdle of not reaching their full potential in life due to developmental delays. When children are on track developmentally, they stand a better chance of being ready for school, excelling academically, economically, and socially throughout the lifespan. Fewer studies in the Nigerian context have examined how known risk and protective factors interact to affect early childhood development (ECD). This three-paper dissertation used data from the nationally representative 2016/17 Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS) and was guided by the social determinants of health framework, the socioecological model of child development, and the family stress and investment models. The study highlighted the factors, including disparities across the multiethnic and diverse socioeconomic groups of Nigeria that are associated with child outcomes. i. Paper 1 assessed the performance and psychometric properties of the 10-item ECDI used in the MICS to track developmental outcomes among Nigerian children. ii. Paper 2 characterized the risk and protective factors for ECD across the 36 states and FCT of Nigeria using a multilevel modeling approach and, iii. Paper 3 used a structural regression to model the association between maternal subjective wellbeing (SWB), and developmental outcomes among the 3- to 4-year-old children. Findings highlighted discrepancies in the construct validity of the ECDI. Across the studies, resources, and family socioeconomic status particularly maternal level of education were significant predictors of outcomes for the child. Further, the study revealed that a child’s developmental context matters, where 29% of the variation in child outcomes was attributed to clustering by states. The studies extend prior research on ECD in Nigeria by its use of more accurate milestones to characterize ECD, its multilevel modeling approach, and its investigation of maternal SWB as a proxy for mental health. In all, findings from the dissertation call attention to the need to revise the ECDI, and for culturally adapted and validated ECD instruments. The study also highlighted the need to invest more resources in child development, mental health, and family strengthening especially through maternal education and wealth creation.