Resilience to early developmental adversity: can children's environment help them overcome the odds?
Socioeconomic inequalities in children’s neurodevelopment and mental health are observed from early onwards and widen over time. Moreover, children whose parents are immigrant, particularly if they belong to ethnic minority groups, may be especially vulnerable. Yet there are important inter-individual differences in development, implying the possibility of resilience. My project will examine the consequences of multiple forms of socioeconomic adversity in children’s family and broader social environment with regard to their neurodevelopment and mental health, testing the role of social supports as sources of resilience. Specifically, I will rely upon longitudinal data collected from the ELFE child cohort study, a nationally representative sample of 18 321 children born in France in 2011 and followed-up to age 10.5 years, which will be linked with longitudinal administrative and geographical information characterizing neighbourhoods of children’s school and residence, as well as healthcare use data. Potential resilience factors will include familial (e.g. relations between the child and his/her mother and father, grandparents’ involvement) and contextual social supports (e.g. childcare prior to school entry, neighborhood social capital). Lifecourse patterns of adversity and resilience at each level of analysis will be identified using statistical methods developed for high-dimensional data and their influence on children’s development will be ascertained applying methods that strengthen causal inference (e.g. propensity scores). The results will help clarify 1) the ways in which lifecourse patterns of exposure to adversity in the family and children’s broader social environment can influence neurodevelopment and mental health, particularly among children of immigrants; 2) familial and collective factors that can help children overcome the odds and should be promoted.