Adversity early in life tends to affect a child’s executive function skills — their ability to focus, for example, or organize tasks. Experiences such as poverty, residential instability, or parental divorce or substance abuse, also can lead to changes in a child’s brain chemistry, muting the effects of stress hormones. These hormones rise to help us face challenges, stress or to simply “get up and go.” Together, these impacts to executive function and stress hormones create a snowball...

Early experiences and life circumstances shape prenatal and early childhood development, with powerful impacts on the developing brain and body that shape health outcomes across the life course and can span generations. The preconception, prenatal, and early childhood periods are critical phases of development that help set the odds for lifelong health and well-being. All children deserve the opportunity to meet their full health potential and lead a fulfilling life. Yet health inequities in...

The American Academy of Pediatrics is committed to addressing the factors that affect child and adolescent health with a focus on issues that may leave some children more vulnerable than others. Racism is a social determinant of health that has a profound impact on the health status of children, adolescents, emerging adults, and their families. Although progress has been made toward racial equality and equity, the evidence to support the continued negative impact of racism on health and...