Engaging students in child health research and policyMay 12, 2022
How can we prevent maltreatment and ensure all children flourish?
That was the subject of a 30-minute talk to a group of undergraduates, graduate students and faculty at an SFU Faulty of Health Sciences student conference held May 3/22. Nicole Catherine, Mowafaghian University Research Associate with the Children’s Health Policy Centre was the person addressing the group.
Speaking on the results of the BC Healthy Connections Project, an evaluation of a primary prevention program for young, first-time moms, Nurse-Family Partnership, Catherine said the results of the research had been moving. “We were honoured that more than 700 girls and young women and their children had shared their experiences with us,” she said. The research group conducted some 3,700 research interviews for the project.
“We’ve learned that prevention needs to start early in pregnancy before children are born,” Catherine said. “Adversities such as family socioeconomic disadvantage and child maltreatment are socially produced and are therefore preventable.”
Students expressed curiosity about how policymakers are interpreting the trial findings, whether the program is continuing in BC and whether other provinces will explore this intervention. They also noticed that the majority of the research was conducted in English which will have excluded children and families from other cultural backgrounds representative of BC.