Roos – focusing on social factors

So one of the things we’ve been trying to do is point out this difference but also that there are many more children at social risk than at biological risk. It’s extraordinarily unusual, there are very few children, fortunately, who are born at very low birth weight or very prematurely. But what we’ve been trying to communicate is the social risk factors need to be treated as seriously as the biological risk.  

Having looked at these data, the question which sort of immediately comes to mind is: how do we get people to care about these issues, about the social factors in the same way they care about the biological ones? And I have to say I’ve been really pleased that there’s a whole new area in pediatrics – the physicians who look after kids –  who are beginning to understand, in fact it’s called “social pediatrics”, there are pediatricians who recognize the importance of these social factors and are beginning to try and teach their colleagues as to how to start thinking about these issues and how to make the case for government, where investments need to be made in early childhood development, is an extraordinarily important period particularly targeting these high-risk groups, high risk social groups, not just the high risk biological groups.