Predictors of early child development for screening pregnant women most in need of support in Brazil

Abstract

Background: Home visiting programmes can support child development and reduce inequalities, but failure to identify the most vulnerable families can undermine such efforts. We examined whether there are strong predictors of poor child development that could be used to screen pregnant women in primary health care settings to target early interventions in a Brazilian population. Considering selected predictors, we assessed coverage and focus of a large-scale home visiting programme named Primeira Infância Melhor (PIM).

Methods: We undertook a prospective cohort study on 3603 children whom we followed from gestation to age four years. We then used 27 potential socioeconomic, psychosocial, and clinical risk factors measurable during pregnancy to predict child development, which was assessed by the Battelle Developmental Inventory (BDI) at the age of four years. We compared the results from a Bonferroni-adjusted conditional inference tree with exploratory linear regression and principal component analysis (PCA), and we conducted external validation using data from a second cohort from the same population. Lastly, we assessed PIM coverage and focus by linking 2015 cohort data with PIM databases.

Results: The decision tree analyses identified maternal schooling as the most important variable for predicting BDI, followed by paternal schooling. Based on these variables, a group of 214 children who had the lowest mean BDI (BDI = -0.48; 95% confidence interval (CI) = -0.63, -0.33) was defined by mothers with ≤5 years and fathers with ≤4 years of schooling. Maternal and paternal schooling were also the strongest predictors in the exploratory analysis using regression and PCA, showing linear associations with the outcome. However, their capacity to explain outcome variance was low, with an adjusted R² of 5.3% and an area under the receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.62 (95% CI = 0.60, 0.64). External validation showed consistent results. We also provided an online screening tool using parental schooling data to support programme's targeting. PIM coverage during pregnancy was low, but the focus was adequate, especially among families with longer enrolment, indicating families most in need received higher dosage.

Conclusions: Information on maternal and paternal schooling can improve the focus of home visiting programmes if used for initial population-level screening of pregnant women in Brazil. However, enrolment decisions require complementary information on parental resources and direct interactions with families to jointly decide on inclusion.