Predicting parental investment and child outcomes in transitioning populations: An application of the evolutionary theory of risk to public health

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Public health programmes have brought significant improvements to the wellbeing of children globally. However, some interventions are only partially effective due to a neglect of parental investment. Parental investment is any activity which increases the child's survival and wellbeing, Despite playing a key role in child outcomes, parental investment is frequently overlooked, and as a result is significantly undertheorised and understudied. In contrast, evolutionary anthropology has specialised in understanding parental investment and has had significant success predicting behavioural diversity. The proposed research aims to integrate public health and evolutionary anthropology theory to create a systematic understanding of parental investment which is relevant to public health interventions. One major influence on parental investment currently overlooked is risk: evolutionary theory predicts that parents who do not believe in their ability to keep their children alive will reduce investment. While this theory is well established, the details of how parental investment responds to risk, and how this influences child outcomes are still not well known. Populations undergoing major subsistence transitions frequently experience altered exposure to risks as child mortality decreases and wealth and resources increase. Therefore, this research will capitalise on the variability present in transitional populations. To fulfil these research aims, the proposed research will ask three questions: (i) how does parental investment respond to different risks; (ii) how do these dynamics influence child outcomes; and (iii) what application does this have to public health interventions? This research will draw on two distinct types of data from populations undergoing subsistence and demographic transitions: an in-depth study of a forging population (the Agta, Philippines) and two longitudinal surveys. The Agta dataset is unique due to its coverage on measures of child wellbeing (including height, weight, medical histories and tests), parental investment (childcare activities) across a population of 900 individuals who experience variable exposure to risk (including infectious disease mortality, accidental death, disease prevalence) and resource availability. The two large-scale surveys - Young Lives Survey (YLS) and the RAND Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS) - contain datasets for five low and middle income countries (Ethiopia, India, Peru, Vietnam and Indonesia) which include longitudinal demographic, socioeconomic and child outcomes data on 7,224 households (IFLS) and 12,000 children (YLS). These provide remarkable detail on risks at the household and community levels as well as measures of parental investment (expenditure on children, feeding practices, treatment of sickness) and child outcomes (height, weight and school attainment results). To meet these aims the proposed research will employ longitudinal and causal inference techniques to consider how variation in risk between communities and households, as well as over time, predict parental investment and how these relationships influence child outcomes. This project will create knowledge with direct relevance to policy. To ensure the translation of this knowledge into practice this project will systematically review interventions aimed at child wellbeing, pinpointing key gaps where data on parental investment in most needed. These findings will be developed into policy reports providing clear guidance for public health interventions targeted at Ethiopia, Peru, Indonesia, India and Vietnam. Additionally, working with advocacy experts, these findings will be applied to policy development at a health and empowerment workshop for the Agta. Research findings will also be published in major public health and anthropology journals, as well as in non-scientific reports summarising the major research findings for the general public.