Proportionate universalism in action-an early life program to explore a mix of universal, selected and indicated approaches to child wellbeing and mental health

Research problem and questionsThe first five years of life are crucial for child health and provide a foundation for health over the life course. Prevention of mental health problems is today one of the most important public health challenges.

Parenting support is essential to promote young children’s development and already during the first years of life there is a social gradient in how parents’ social and economic position influences parenting and child health.

The overarching aim of this programme is to support child wellbeing and mental health through developing, evaluating and implementing feasible and effective interventions within and between the existing health care and municipality services for pregnant couples and families with 0-5-year-old children.Data and methodsWe propose ten interventions on the universal, selective and indicated levels.

The basis for these interventions is research on early child development and parenting strategies, from our group and the international literature.

We develop new interventions and adapt evidence-based methods in dialogue with practitioners in health care and municipality services to ensure feasibility and early implementation of results.A prerequisite for application of the concept of proportionate universalism is an infrastructure for systematic identification of needs and risk factors and for evaluation of results in relation to social determinants.

Here we expand an existing cohort of parent reported data, including validated instruments on wellbeing and mental health, that allows such identification and evaluation from mid pregnancy to child age 4-years.

We apply a mixed methods research design including pilot and feasibility studies as well as randomised controlled trials.

We apply qualitative and quantitative statistical methods to evaluate feasibility and effects of the interventions in relation to social determinants.

In addition, we conduct methodological studies on measurements of parenting strategies as well as child wellbeing and mental health.Relevance and utilisationDespite the broad agreement on the importance of the concept of proportionate universalism, the literature states that improved cross-sectoral collaboration and monitoring of parental support is needed and that research on how interventions on different levels could be combined is lacking.

In this programme we intend to fill these knowledge gaps.Programme realisationThis research programme is based on collaboration between several research groups, combining several disciplines and expertise from various fields. We have close links to clinical practice.

We aim at introducing junior researchers to research on promotion and prevention during the first years of life, to ensure regrowth and a continued focus on this particularly important phase of life.