DOI: 10.5061/dryad.3340hc4
title: Data from: Two-year impact of community-based health screening and parenting groups on child development in Zambia: follow-up to a cluster-randomized controlled trial

description: Background: Early childhood interventions have potential to offset the
 negative impact of early adversity. We evaluated the impact of a
 community-based parenting group intervention on child development in
 Zambia. Methods and Findings: We conducted a non-masked cluster-randomized
 controlled trial in Southern Province, Zambia. Thirty clusters of villages
 were matched based on population density and distance from the nearest
 health center, and randomly assigned to intervention (15 clusters, 268
 caregiver-child dyads) or control (15 clusters, 258 caregiver-child
 dyads). Caregivers were eligible if they had a child six to 12 months old
 at baseline. In intervention clusters, caregivers were visited twice per
 month during the first year of the study by Child Development Agents
 (CDAs) and were invited to attend fortnightly parenting group meetings.
 Parenting groups selected 'head mothers' from their communities
 who were trained by CDAs to facilitate meetings and deliver a diverse
 parenting curriculum. The parenting group intervention, originally
 designed to run for one year, was extended and households were visited for
 a follow-up assessment at the end of year two. The control group did not
 receive any intervention. Intention-to-treat analysis was performed for
 primary outcomes measured at the year two follow-up: stunting and five
 domains of neurocognitive development measured using the Bayley Scale for
 Infant and Toddler Development (BSID-III). In order to show Cohen's d
 estimates, BSID-III composite scores were converted to z-scores by
 standardizing within the study population. 195/268 children (73%) in the
 intervention and 182/258 children (71%) in the control group were assessed
 at endline after two years. The intervention significantly reduced
 stunting (56/195 vs. 72/182; adjusted OR 0.45, 95% CI 0.22 to 0.92;
 p=0.028) and had a significant positive impact on language (β 0.14, 95% CI
 0.01 to 0.27; p=0.039). The intervention did not significantly impact
 cognition (β 0.11, 95% CI -0.06 to 0.29; p=0.196), motor (β -0.01, 95% CI
 -0.25 to 0.24; p=0.964), adaptive behavior (β 0.21, 95% CI -0.03 to 0.44;
 p=0.088), or social-emotional development (β 0.20, 95% CI -0.04 to 0.44;
 p=0.098). Observed impacts may have been due in part to home visits by
 CDAs during the first year of the intervention. Conclusions: The results
 of this trial suggest that parenting groups hold promise for improving
 child development, particularly physical growth, in low-resource settings
 like Zambia. This study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02234726).
description: Rockers et al
 (2018)Data from 377
 caregiver-child pairs collected at baseline (2015) and year two follow-up
 (2017) of a cluster-randomized controlled trial conducted in Zambia.
 Includes household demographics, child anthropometry including stunting
 status, and child development scores using Bayley Scale for Infant and
 Toddler Development, 3rd Edition (BSID-III).