The impact of Sure Start on health and social care

Overview

Measure the impact of this policy on the health of infants and mothers living in the most deprived areas of Northern Ireland. Using administrative data, we are also scoping the potential to look at impact throughout a child’s life.

Being born into poverty is associated with educational and health disadvantages from infancy through to adulthood and incurs a considerable expense to the public purse. Early years interventions — such as Sure Start — have tremendous potential to address the causes of educational and health inequalities in later life. However, it has always been challenging to prove the impact of these interventions robustly. Our project takes advantage of a natural experiment that occurred when the Department of Education expanded Sure Start to new areas between 2006 – 2010, 2013 – 2017 and 2021.

Using administrative data on every child born in Northern Ireland, our research aims are to measure the impact of Sure Start on:

• Maternal and child health in the first 60 months of life
• Use of services and identification of developmental delays in children
• Early parenting behaviours

Activities and Methods

Our team will :

• Measure the impact of Sure Start on the families using linked administrative data to create a birth cohort composed of thousands of infants.     
• Address a critical evidence gap regarding Sure Start and its benefits.

Disseminate our findings outside of academia to advance decision-making in the rest of the UK. We aim to speak directly to families and Sure Start practitioners, recognising their invaluable insights, as well as third-sector organisations such as the National Children’s Bureau.    

Findings

This Research is ongoing