Executive Summary: Research Gaps at the Intersection of Pediatric Neurodevelopment, Nutrition, and Inflammation in Low-Resource Settings

A growing and compelling body of evidence demonstrates that children born into poverty, whether in high-, middle-, or low-income countries,(1) are at heightened risk for compromised health and developmental outcomes throughout the life course.(2-6) It is estimated that 80.8 million children ages 3 and 4 years in low-and middle-income countries experienced low cognitive and/or socioemotional development in 2010 based on Early Childhood Development Index scores, with the largest number of affected children in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, and the East Asia and Pacific region.(6) Recent evidence has also underscored the importance of interventions to foster healthy neurodevelopment from preconception through adolescence in light of findings that the early years of life are a sensitive period for countering adverse exposures that threaten the integrity of neural, neuroendocrine, and immune systems.(7) Consequently, there is an increasing recognition by the global health community of the need to expand initiatives to address not only the ongoing need for reduced child mortality, but also to decrease child morbidity and adverse exposures toward improving health and developmental outcomes. The bridging of the child survival and child development fields has recently been prioritized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies as being essential for optimizing global health, equity, and sustainable development.(8) In fact, a recent review found significant overlap between public health strategies for improving child survival and child development interventions, the latter of which typically include enriching learning components.(9)