Parental Impact on Filipino Early Childhood Development*

描述(由申请人提供)：生命的最初几年越来越被强调为生命周期中的健康和生产力的关键，并已做出越来越多的努力来改善儿童早期发展(ECD)。然而，人们对发展中国家幼儿疾病的决定因素知之甚少，包括家庭背景的重要性。为FIRCA申请的“菲律宾幼儿发展：纵向分析”的家长赠款试图通过以下方式填补部分知识空白：(1)菲律宾人口研究办公室(OPS)在2001年开始新的幼儿发展计划之前收集了关于0-4岁儿童及其家庭、幼儿发展服务提供者和社区的纵向数据，包括三轮后续数据；(2)分析幼儿发展计划的影响；以及(3)通过合作进行能力建设。这项FIRCA申请是为了对父母背景对幼儿发展和产妇保健的影响进行新的分析，以收集的数据、获得的知识和在父母资助下发展的合作研究关系为基础--但超出了父母项目的范围。具体的FIRCA专题是由OPS的工作人员根据他们的专业知识和研究兴趣制定的，其基础是从各种学科角度对菲律宾儿童和产妇保健的现状和理解方面的差距非常熟悉。关于幼儿发展(或产妇健康)指标的技术/生物“生产函数”的构造将被用来组织对父母背景对幼儿发展(或产妇健康)直接影响的经验性调查。对替代标准的探索将提供基本的见解，以了解大多数文献中使用的强有力的假设对于正确估计和解释家庭背景对.ECD和孕产妇健康的因果影响有多么重要。简约形式的需求关系包含了家庭背景的直接和间接影响，将进一步深入了解家庭资源和行为如何影响幼儿发展和产妇健康。这项FIRCA研究以OPS为中心，OPS的工作人员领导研究，将丰富我们对低收入背景下父母背景对幼儿发展和产妇保健的关键影响的知识，并使OPS的进一步分析能力建设成为可能。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The initial years of life are increasingly emphasized as critical for health and productivity over the life cycle and increasing efforts have been made to improve early childhood development (ECD). Yet little is known about determinants of ECD in developing countries, including the importance of family background. The parent grant on "Filipino Early Childhood Development: Longitudinal Analysis" for this FIRCA application attempts to fill part of this knowledge gap through: (1) collection by the Office of Population Studies (OPS) in the Philippines of longitudinal data on children aged 0-4 and their families, ECD services providers, and communities in 2001 prior to initiation of a new ECD program with three rounds of follow-up data; (2) analyses of impacts of the ECD program; and (3) capacity-building through collaboration. This FIRCA application is for new analyses of effects of parental background on ECD and on maternal health care, building on data collected, knowledge gained, and collaborative research relations developed under the parent grant -- but going beyond the parent project. The specific FIRCA topics have been developed by OPS staff based on their expertise and research interests and are grounded in substantial familiarity with the current state of and gaps in understanding of child and maternal health in the Philippines from a variety of disciplinary perspectives. The construct of technological/biological "production functions" for indicators of ECD (or of maternal health) dependent directly on inputs chosen by the parents and on inputs exogenous to parents will be used to organize empirical investigation of direct impacts of parental background on ECD (or on maternal health). Exploration of alternative specifications will provide essential insights into how important are strong assumptions used in most of the literature for correct estimation and interpretation of causal impacts of family background on.ECD and maternal health. Reduced-form demand relations that incorporate both direct and indirect effects of family background will provide further insight on how family resources and behaviors affect ECD and maternal health. This FIRCA research, centered at OPS with OPS staff leading the studies, will enrich our knowledge of critical effects of parental background on ECD and maternal health care in a low-income context, as well as permit further analytical capacity-building at OPS.