Improving young children's health by changing the conditions in which they live

Of the five main determinants of health – genes, nutrition, health services, attitudes and behaviors and physical environments – the last one is the most overlooked.

This is a serious oversight, given that the WHO estimates one-third of childhood diseases are attributable to poor physical environments, a statistic up to 12 times higher in developing countries.

International organizations including the Gates Foundation, Save the Children, UNICEF and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation have all made child mortality, nutrition and access to health services a major priority. However, we have not been able to identify any global child focused organization systematically looking at the impact of children’s physical environments.

The need and the niche become more evident when we consider world trends in urbanization. As of 2007, more than half the world’s population lives in urban areas and one in three urban dwellers is living in a slum.

In parallel, we see massive infrastructure development with 3.9 trillion US dollars spent on construction in the 55 countries with the largest construction markets during 2004 alone.

It is a large sandbox to play in, but we believe that big changes for young children can be achieved with small adjustments in the way this pool of resources is used.

Improving the conditions in which children live, their physical environments, is an excellent niche for a small and innovative foundation to play. It allows us the opportunity to engage with an entirely new set of stakeholders who have great influence over the quality of young children’s lives, such as ministries of housing and culture, chambers of architects and planners and manufacturers and construction companies.

More importantly, it has the potential to make an enormous impact on children’s lives with relatively small interventions, and will help illustrate what can be achieved when all members of society consider the wellbeing of its youngest citizens.