Delivery Strategies Supporting School-Age Child Health: A Systematic Review.

CONTEXT: School-aged children (SAC; 5-9 years) remain understudied in global efforts to examine intervention effectiveness and scale up evidence-based interventions. OBJECTIVE: This review summarizes the available evidence describing the effectiveness of key strategies to deliver school-age interventions. DATA SOURCES: We searched Medline, PsycINFO, Campbell Collaboration, and The Cochrane Library during November 2020. STUDY SELECTION: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that: target SAC, examine effective delivery of well-established interventions, focus on low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), were published after 2010, and focus on generalizable, rather than special, populations. DATA EXTRACTION: Two reviewers conducted title and abstract screening, full-text screening, data extraction, and quality assessments. RESULTS: Sixty reviews met the selection criteria, with 35 containing evidence from LMICs. The outcomes assessed and the reported effectiveness of interventions varied within and across delivery strategies. Overall, community, school, and financial strategies improved several child health outcomes. The greatest evidence was found for the use of community-based interventions to improve infectious disease outcomes, such as malaria control and prevention. School-based interventions improved child development and infectious disease-related outcomes. Financial strategies improved school enrollment, food security, and dietary diversity. LIMITATIONS: Relatively few LMIC studies examined facility, digital, and self-management strategies. Additionally, we found considerable heterogeneity within and across delivery strategies and review authors reported methodological limitations within the studies. CONCLUSIONS: Despite limited research, available information suggests community-based strategies can be effective for the introduction of a range of interventions to support healthy growth and development in SAC. These also have the potential to reduce disparities and reach at-risk and marginalized populations.

Interventions for Health and Well-Being in School-Aged Children and Adolescents: A Way Forward.

The health and well-being of school-aged children has received little attention compared with younger children aged < 5 years and adolescents. In this final article in a supplement of reviews that have assessed the effectiveness of interventions for school-aged children across a variety of health-related domains (including infectious diseases, noncommunicable diseases, healthy lifestyle, mental health, unintentional injuries, and sexual and reproductive health), we summarize the main findings and offer a way forward for future research, policy, and implementation. We complement this evidence base on interventions with a summary of the literature related to enabling policies and intersectoral actions supporting school-aged child health. The school represents an important platform for both the delivery of preventive interventions and the collection of data related to child health and academic achievement, and several frameworks exist that help to facilitate the creation of a health-promoting environment at school.

Mental Health and Positive Development Prevention Interventions: Overview of Systematic Reviews.

CONTEXT: Previous reviews of mental health interventions have focused on adolescents (10-19 years), with a paucity of comprehensive evidence syntheses on preventive interventions for school-aged children (5-10 years). OBJECTIVE: To summarize and synthesize the available evidence from systematic reviews of mental health and positive development interventions for children aged 5-14.9 years in both high-income (HIC) and low- and middle-income countries (LMIC), with a focus on preventive and promotive strategies. DATA SOURCES: This overview includes all relevant reviews from OVID Medline, The Cochrane Library, and Campbell Systematic Reviews through December 2020. STUDY SELECTION: We included systematic reviews that synthesized empirical studies using experimental or quasi-experimental designs to evaluate the effectiveness of interventions in children aged 5-14.9 years. DATA EXTRACTION: Data extraction and quality assessment were completed independently and in duplicate by two review authors. The AMSTAR2 tool was used to assess methodological quality. RESULTS: We included 162 reviews. The greatest evidence was found in support of school-based universal and anti-bullying interventions in predominantly HIC. Moderate evidence was found for the use of substance abuse prevention, and early learning and positive development interventions in mixed settings. In LMIC-only contexts, the most promising evidence was found for positive youth development programs. LIMITATIONS: The review was primarily limited by paucity of high-quality research due to methodological issues and high heterogeneity. CONCLUSIONS: This overview of reviews highlights the need for further research to consolidate findings and understand the specific criteria involved in creating positive mental health and development outcomes from the various interventions considered.

What can work and how? An overview of evidence-based interventions and delivery strategies to support health and human development from before conception to 20 years.

Progress has been made globally in improving the coverage of key maternal, newborn, and early childhood interventions in low-income and middle-income countries, which has contributed to a decrease in child mortality and morbidity. However, inequities remain, and many children and adolescents are still not covered by life-saving and nurturing care interventions, despite their relatively low costs and high cost-effectiveness. This Series paper builds on a large body of work from the past two decades on evidence-based interventions and packages of care for survival, strategies for delivery, and platforms to reach the most vulnerable. We review the current evidence base on the effectiveness of a variety of essential and emerging interventions that can be delivered from before conception until age 20 years to help children and adolescents not only survive into adulthood, but also to grow and develop optimally, support their wellbeing, and help them reach their full developmental potential. Although scaling up evidence-based interventions in children younger than 5 years might have the greatest effect on reducing child mortality rates, we highlight interventions and evidence gaps for school-age children (5-9 years) and the transition from childhood to adolescence (10-19 years), including interventions to support mental health and positive development, and address unintentional injuries, neglected tropical diseases, and non-communicable diseases.