Anthropology of Child Health

Ethnographies of child health have illuminated the wide variation in patterns of childhood life, and their relationship to child health. In conjunction with demographic and epidemiological research, anthropology has helped create understanding of the social and cultural determinants of fertility and child mortality and patterns of care. Above and beyond the effects of nutrition, psychological stimulus is critical to social-emotional and cognitive development. While policy at the population level focuses on extension of health care and early education systems, it is crucially important that at the local level intervention take into account the diversity patterns of parental care and childrearing in specific sociocultural settings. There is great diversity in systems of early childhood caregiving and diverse family strategies for survival. These cultural systems shape early attachment and social-emotional learning in ways that need to be understood if intervention is to be effective.