Risk Assessment and Preventive Child Health Care during the First 1000 Days from Conception Onwards
A special issue of International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health (ISSN 1660-4601).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 June 2022) | Viewed by 14472
Special Issue Editor
Interests: life cycle; public health; first 1000 days; prevention and prediction; socioeconomic and ethnic health differences; vulnerable groups; early life stress; nutrition; integration of biological, sociopsychological and environmental pathways; growth, development and cardiometabolic health in childhood; translation into primary and secondary preventive child health care
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
More and more evidence has arisen that both risk factors and protective factors play an important role during the preconception phase and the first 1000 days from conception onward, potentially leading to lifelong and even transgenerational consequences. These include physical (e.g., malnutrition, mode of delivery), psychosocial (e.g., maternal depression and anxiety, and child abuse), environmental (e.g., smoking exposure), and also medical factors (e.g., the use of antibiotics and folic acid suppletion, known for its protective effects). Exposure to these factors may lead to epigenetic changes or other biological changes (e.g., in brain structure), which have implications for early development and diseases later in life, including neurodevelopmental, neurodegenerative, and immunological diseases.
Little is known regarding to what extent adverse changes are reversible. Therefore, from both an individual level and from a public health perspective, primary (but also secondary) prevention is considerably important, implying that exposure to (accumulation of) risk factors should be reduced and exposure to protective factors be promoted. Therefore, understanding how primary (or secondary) prevention from preconception onward can be realized and, consequently, healthcare costs can be minimized is very relevant for public health research.
This Special Issue of IJERPH, entitled “Risk Assessment and Preventive Child Healthcare during the First 1000 Days from Conception Onward” offers an opportunity to publish high-quality research, reviews, and theoretical notes that further our understanding of the role of primary and secondary prevention of changes originating from the preconception phase and the first 1000 days of life, and which role preventive child healthcare can play. We welcome quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods research. Submissions that discuss new knowledge, developments, and innovations in the field of the prevention aiming at the development of children to their full potential are particularly encouraged.
We invite you to submit articles on topics including, but not limited to, the following:
- Development of primary and secondary preventive interventions in the preconception phase and the first 1000 days of life leading to a reduction of adverse developmental outcomes and diseases later in life;
- Evaluation of primary and secondary preventive interventions in the preconception phase and the first 1000 days of life leading to a reduction of adverse developmental outcomes and diseases later in life;
- Innovations in risk assessment and care pathways in the preconception phase and the first 1000 days of life;
- Assessment of targets for primary and secondary prevention based on integrating several biological, psychosocial, and environmental predictors, mediating or moderating factors;
- Innovation in the measurement of risks during these phases of life;
- Cost-effectiveness of preventive interventions in these phases of life;
- Translation of scientific insights into preventive child healthcare practice and into other practices aiming at prevention.
Dr. Marlou L.A. De Kroon
Guest Editor
Manuscript Submission Information
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Keywords
- prevention
- risk assessment and prediction
- monitoring
- preconception
- perinatal
- risk and protective factors
- first 1000 days
- epigenetic programming
- brains structure
- (ir)reversible changes
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