Sec. 2. Findings

659 words·~3 min read·/bill/116/hr/4864/eh/section-2

A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.

Congress finds the following: According to a 2019 report from the United Nations Inter-Agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation entitled Levels & Trends in Child Mortality , the annual number of deaths among children younger than 15 years of age dropped by 56 percent between 1990 and 2018, from approximately 14,200,000 to approximately 6,200,000. According to a 2016 article published in The Lancet entitled Early childhood development: the foundation of sustainable development — an estimated 250,000,000 children in low-income and middle-income countries suffer suboptimal development due to poverty and stunting alone; and children who do not meet developmental milestones are expected to lose about 25 percent of their average yearly income once they become adults.

According to a report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), entitled The State of the World’s Children 2016: A fair chance for every child , nearly 250,000,000 of the world’s 650,000,000 primary school age children do not master basic literacy and numeracy. According to a 2018 report from the World Health Organization entitled Nurturing Care for early childhood development — the environment in which a child grows has a profound impact on future learning, behavior, and health; and a country’s economic diversity and growth could be improved by investment in early childhood development.

According to a 2017 UNICEF report entitled UNICEF’s Programme Guidance for Early Childhood Development , nurturing care, which is key to early childhood development, consists of a core set of interrelated components, including— behaviors, attitudes, and knowledge about caregiving, including health, hygiene care, and feeding; stimulation, such as talking, singing, and playing; responsiveness, such as early bonding, secure attachment, trust, and sensitive communication; and safety, including routines, protection from violence, abuse, neglect, harm, and environmental pollution.

According to a 2016 report published in The Lancet entitled Advancing Early Childhood Development: From Science to Scale — nurturing care from parents, relatives, and other caregivers and services are formative experiences for young children; programs promoting nurturing care can improve early childhood development outcomes; and children who do not receive nurturing care display negative development outcomes, such as greater sensitivity to the effects of stress or behavioral problems, especially children who do not receive nurturing care before their second birthday.

According to the Advancing Protection and Care for Children in Adversity 2019–2023: A U.S. Government Strategy for International Assistance , children who live without protective family care, in abusive households, on the streets, or in institutions, or who are trafficked, are participating in armed groups, or are being exploited for their labor are more likely to be exposed to violence, exploitation, abuse, and neglect. According to a 2017 UNICEF report entitled Early Moments Matter for every child , violence, abuse, neglect, and traumatic experiences produce toxic stress that limits neural connectivity in developing brains.

According to a 2014 working paper from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child at Harvard University entitled Excessive Stress Disrupts the Architecture of the Developing Brain — situations that produce toxic stress increase the production of cortisol in a child’s brain, which disrupts its healthy development; and chronic stress can potentially affect the expression of genes that regulate the stress response across the life course. According to a 2018 article in the North Carolina Medical Journal entitled Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs):

An Important Element of a Comprehensive Approach to the Opioid Crisis , adverse childhood experiences

(ACEs)are traumatic or stressful experiences, including emotional, physical, or sexual abuse, domestic violence, household substance abuse, household mental illness, parental separation or divorce, and the incarceration of a household family member. According to a 2016 report in Development and Psychopathology entitled Childhood Adversity and Epigenetic Regulation of Glucocorticoid Signaling Genes: Associations in Children and Adults — children and adults are at risk of developing psychiatric disorders and other medical conditions if they have had an adverse childhood experience; and adults who have had numerous ACEs die nearly 20 years earlier, on average, than adults who have not had numerous ACEs.