North American Ed - Developmental health

3.2 Shaping public policies

Early years policies, if co-ordinated and evidence-based, can reduce the need for expensive remedial education and social services in the future” (OECD, 2025, para. 2).

If we think about child development in the context of the developmental health perspective it gives us a clear and profound lens for understanding what is important in supporting the well-being of young children and ultimately in creating healthy and competent populations. The future of humanity depends on our capacity to cope with the many complex challenges in the 21st century. We need strong, healthy children who grow into competent adults, capable of coping with the challenges of survival and quality of life in the ‘global village’. It is incumbent on everyone involved in making policy decisions to always keep this perspective.

In their report, “Reducing Inequalities by Investing in Early Childhood Education and Care”, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) provide a policy roadmap for governments to ensure equal opportunities in the early years. They suggest aligning universal and targeted approaches as well as aligning ECEC with broader early years approaches. You can read more about this policy roadmap in the report, below. (The executive summary, full report, and support materials are all available on this site).

The Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment (2026) suggests “designing policies and programs that create, maintain, and restore stability can help strengthen the foundations for healthy development” (para 3). Read more in the working paper below.

In the Early Years Study 4, the Honourable Margaret Norrie McCain calls on governments to offer early education to all preschool-aged children. “The benefits are large, as are the costs of inaction. We cannot afford to squander the untold talents of another generation. When Canadian children thrive, Canada thrives” (McCain,  2020, p. 4)​. The Early Years Study 4 video highlights the importance of the first 2000 days and presents a somewhat dismal picture of the current early childhood education situation in Canada. Both in the video and in the Chapter 4 highlights, Margaret McCain presents a convincing overview of necessary policy implications and the accompanying need for significant investment in Canada’s children.

In the next video, Dr. Charles Nelson, professor in the Department of Society, Human Development and Health at the Harvard School of Public Health, asks policy makers to take the long term perspective because what happens early in life matters later.

The Center for the Developing Child at Harvard University supports using a science-based framework to guide the creation of systems, policies and practices that will support healthy human development. The next link is from their website. The video clearly outlines 3 principles, grounded in the science of early child development, to guide policy-makers.

In the next two clips, the late Sir Michael Rutter, formerly at King’s College London, and Dr. Charles Pascal at the University of Toronto, discuss the complexities of linking research to policy.

The next website to explore, State of Babies Yearbook, is an American resource that looks deeply at how children are doing across the U.S. The authors of the 2022 Yearbook explain that the “objective for each edition of the Yearbook is to ensure the data provided are most useful to policymakers and advocates in spurring action and tracking policies over time to support young children and their families (Keating et al., 2022, p. 17).

Universal vs. targeted programs

There are two kinds of programs often discussed in relation to investing in young children. “Universal programs” are those that everyone in society receives, regardless of income, such as the public school system. “Targeted programs” are specially designed to reach children at risk, often identified by income. Head Start is an example of a targeted program.

The next four clips provide several rationales for universality.

In the next video, Dr. Susan Prentice, a professor at the University of Manitoba, with expertise in social and family policy, describes and provides the rationale for a universally accessible, publicly funded child care program.

Dr. Jody Heymann, founding director of the WORLD Policy Analysis Center, highlights the benefits of universal access.

Dr. Mildred Warner, an economist at Cornell University, also argues for the benefits of universal rather than targeted programs in the United States.

Dr. Dan Keating, at the University of Michigan, discusses the value of universal, targeted and clinical programs.

Kerry McCuaig, at the Atkinson Centre for Society and Child Development, advocates aligning early childhood education programs with the public and universal education system in Canada.

Dr. Martin Guhn, at the University of British Columbia, discusses proportionate universality, which is a way to design interventions to blend the universal and targeted approaches in order to reduce inequity. The idea is to make resources more easily available for those individuals who may have trouble accessing them.

The Early Years Study 4 provides five reasons to support universal early childhood education in Canada, as well as the principles of such a system.

Child and family income policy in Canada

This module presents evidence about the impact of socioeconomic status (SES) on child development. In Canada, income transfers to families with children are intended to reduce difficulties faced by low-income families. In the next reading, Annie McEwen and Jennifer Stewart review the evidence in 34 studies and present policy implications.

In Canada, just by having a child, families face an almost 40% chance of living in poverty. The following narrated slides on relative poverty rates for families compares Finland, Norway and Sweden to their Anglo-American counterparts. Strong family policies keep poverty rates relatively low in the Nordic countries but in these Anglo-American countries just having a child puts a family at risk. Lone parent status has little affect in the Nordic countries but has a great impact in Canada, the UK and US. But the pattern of senior poverty is different. In the 1970s Canada made a focused effort to address senior poverty with a high degree of success. And it makes a real difference.

Guhn makes the point in the next video that eliminating childhood and family poverty is a possibility when it is considered a priority by those who make social policy decisions.

Family health policies in Canada

Canada is a country that has a range of social policies that can be seen as supporting and promoting health and well-being. For example, Canada’s publicly-funded health care system means that everyone should be able to access to health care services. However, according to the Canadian Paediatric Society (CPS), there is a long way to go before we can say that Canadian public policies focus adequately on health promotion, disease and injury prevention and doing what’s in the best interest of children. In the following report, the CPS looks at federal and provincial policies and programs and rates policy progress since 2009.

In Canada, the economic and health disparities between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal populations are huge. The National Collaborating Centre for Aboriginal Health provides a comprehensive overview of the importance of Culture and language as social determinants of First Nations, Inuit and Metis health.  The ‘Improving Outcomes’ section highlights some programs intended to revitalize culture and language in hopes of improving overall health outcomes.

In order to address the challenges faced by First Nations, Inuit, and Metis people, the Health Council of Canada has undertaken a project to look into the heath concerns and investigate programs and practices that are making a difference. This project began in 2010 with close consideration of maternal and child health. The report of this work is archived on the Government of Canada website. On the following web page, choose, “continue to publication” to see the full report.