Available online 1 April 2009 Previous work has found that many young children show different patterns of production of the hormone cortisol, which is sensitive to stress and challenge, on days when they are at child care compared with days when they are at home. At home, preschool age children typically show a decreasing pattern of cortisol production across the day which is the expected diurn...

BACKGROUND Child care centers influence physical activity levels among children, yet little is known about the specific aspects of the environment that support generous amounts of activity. The purpose of this study was to examine the practices, and environmental aspects of the child care center that are associated with children's moderate and vigorous physical activity. METHODS Thirty-five c...

The experience of 39 preschool-age maltreated children from 13 child care facilities was examined to determine the extent to which the children's social development was related to the quality of day-care service. Maltreated children assigned by the Arkansas Department of Social Services to three different types of child care facilities were observed: specialized day-care programs, regular day-c...

In this chapter, we present results of the child care quality assessments conducted in the Community Child Care Research Project. The sample consisted of the 307 child care settings attended by the children in the study. Data collection took place during 2002 and 2003. Sixty-three percent (n=193) of children were place in child care centers (licensed child care center, child care ministry, and ...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate the effect of successful prevention of common infections in child day care centers on the later development of allergic diseases. DESIGN Prospective follow-up survey with a questionnaire administered 12 years after a controlled randomized hygiene intervention. SETTING Twenty municipal child day care centers in Oulu, Finland. PARTICIPANTS A questionnaire was sent to 1...

OBJECTIVE To evaluate studies of child care with specific attention to the impact of age at entry and amount, quality, and type of care on children's adaptive functioning. DATA SOURCES MEDLINE, PsychINFO, and the SAGE Full-Text Collection. STUDY SELECTION The review considers correlational and experimental research conducted throughout the world that includes an adequate description of the ...

BACKGROUND There is evidence that children experience a transient increase in mild episodes of gastroenteritis when they start attending out-of-home child care. We assessed the transient and sustained effects of cumulative day-care attendance, age at first enrolment and type of child care facility attended on hospitalization rates for gastroenteritis. METHODS Cox proportional hazard models we...