Illness-related absence among preschool children: Insights from a health intervention in Swedish preschools

Abstract

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. IFAU's objective is to promote, support and carry out scientific evaluations. The assignment includes: the effects of labour market and educational policies, studies of the functioning of the labour market and the labour market effects of social insurance policies. IFAU shall also disseminate its results so that they become accessible to different interested parties in Sweden and abroad. Terms of use: Documents in EconStor mayPapers published in the Working Paper Series should, according to the IFAU policy, have been discussed at seminars held at IFAU and at least one other academic forum, and have been read by one external and one internal referee. They need not, however, have undergone the standard scrutiny for publication in a scientific journal. The purpose of the Working Paper Series is to provide a factual basis for public policy and the public policy discussion. AbstractWe evaluate the effect of a preschool health intervention aimed at reducing infections through improved hygiene practices and training of the staff. The large-scale design enables us to study heterogeneous effects with respect to several child and preschool characteristics that are assumed to be associated with the initial level of absence, and thereby the potential magnitude of the effect. We find no reduction, on average, in children's illness-related absence. This conclusion holds across different age groups of preschool children, and for preschools with varying levels of absence before the intervention. However, we do find some evidence for a decline in illness-related absence among children enrolled in preschool sections with relatively few children. We find some empirical support for that the intervention consisted of components with opposing effects on illness-related absence, which may explain the zero average effect.Keywords: Preschool, absence due to illness JEL-codes: J13, J48 IntroductionAlong with women's increased participation in the labor force, early childhood education and care services 1 have expanded in many OECD countries. In several countries such as France, Germany, Sweden, and the UK more than 90 percent of all 3-year-olds are enrolled in early childhood education (OECD 2014). While a number of studies have found positive impacts of early childhood education programs on both cognitive and non-cognitive outcomes 2 (particularly for disadvantaged children), the picture is less positive when it comes to health benefits. Descriptive evidence demonstrates a sub...

A scoping review to identify the type and effect of hand hygiene interventions on the reduction of infectious diseases (including COVID-19) in preschool children

“…A total of 12 studies were included in the scoping review. Only one of the studies was conducted in Africa, [11] five were set in European countries, [16,25,[30][31][32] three in Asia, [26,28,29] two in the Middle East [18,27] and one in South America. [24] To determine the success of an intervention a measurable variable needs to be defined.…”

“…Absenteeism was also recorded, either by the parent or the caregiver at the preschool, although in one study it also included the use of the temporary parental benefit provided by that country's government and claimed by parents when taking time off to care for sick children. [32] Records identi ed through database searching (PubMED) (n=305)…”

“…Hall & Lindahl [32] 2016 Sweden Child absenteeism Hygiene inspection and 2-hour lecture to caregivers on HH and reducing contagious diseases Not able to measure whether hygiene was improved; intervention had no effect on children's absence due to illness; significantly less absenteeism in groups <15 children HH = hand hygiene; HP = health promotion; WT = water treatment; HSG = hand sanitiser group; RI = respiratory infections; ADD = acute diarrhoeal disease; ARI = acute respiratory disease.…”

“…[16] The registers used to track whether children were ill or absent were kept variously by parents, the school or both. In one study, government records were accessed to determine whether parents had used their temporary parental benefits to care for children at home [32] and in some cases medical professionals were used to scrutinise registers to determine whether recorded disease incidents complied with the defined descriptions of the disease.…”

“…The described screening process yielded a final set of 12 studies for analysis. [11,16,18,[24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31][32] . Extracted information was collated in table format (see Table 1).…”