The Lancet is an independent and authoritative publication which ensures that medical research and analysis is widely covered. The Lancet is committed to improving newborn, child, and maternal survival. It has online material as well as the weekly publications. It also has coverage of meetings and special issues/series relating to child survival, and a complete article collection dating back to 2003.
In 2007 it published a special series of Child Development in Developing Countries with collaboration from a Childwatch International key member, The Caribbean Child Development Centre. This three part series reviews the problem of loss of developmental potential in young children in developing countries. It sets out the size of the problem, the proximal causes of the loss and the existing interventions. It explains how important early development is both economically and in terms of equity and individual well-being and yet how at least 200 million children under the age of 5 are not fulfilling their developmental potential. This is due four identified risks encountered by young children in developing countries, all of which are modifiable, which jeopardize children’s educational opportunities; stunting, iodine deficiency, iron deficiency anaemia and inadequate cognitive stimulation. There are also four potential risks based on epidemiological evidence: maternal depression, violence exposure, environmental contamination and malaria. The publication assesses strategies to ameliorate and prevent these losses of human capacity and development.
To order go to: http://www.thelancet.com/collections/child2007