Italo Lopez Garcia
University of Southern California, CA·Social Science
Many young children in low- and middle-income countries do not reach their full developmental potential because of poverty, poor growth, or too little stimulation at home. Programs that coach parents in responsive caregiving (noticing and reacting warmly to a child's cues) can boost early childhood development, but the gains often fade over time.
- Fields
Social Science
Public Health & Epidemiology
Psychology
- Topics
early childhood development
parenting interventions
responsive caregiving
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Apr 2030
What they work on
- Measure whether gains from Msingi Bora, an 8-month group parenting program in rural Kenya, persist about five years later in children's cognitive, language, executive function and social-emotional skills, using a follow-up survey across 60 villages.
- Test whether the original program spilled over to the younger and older siblings of targeted children, and examine whether parenting beliefs, social networks and community norms explain any lasting effects.
- Compare a couples-focused parenting program, Msingi Bora Familia, with a mothers-only version and a control group in a cluster randomized trial of 120 Kenyan villages and 1,200 households.
- Identify how father engagement affects children, through direct caregiving or indirectly through maternal mental health, reduced intimate partner violence and better couple relationships, and whether these effects last two years.
- Estimate the cost-effectiveness of the mothers-only and couples program models, using cost data collected during implementation.
More about the research
Nearly all such programs also work only with mothers. Through field trials and long-term follow-up surveys in rural Kenya, this research asks two linked questions. Can the benefits of a parenting program last into school age? And does including fathers make benefits larger and longer-lasting?
Why it matters
Results could guide governments and organizations designing parenting programs for families with young children, both in low- and middle-income countries and in U.S. father-engagement and family-strengthening programs. Evidence on whether low-cost group programs keep working for years, and whether including fathers adds value for the cost, could help decide which programs to scale up to improve children's early development.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Julie Wargo Aikins
Wayne State University, MI·Psychology
Test whether disrupted maternal representations of the child, measured with the Working Model of the Child Interview, stay stable from the third trimester of pregnancy to when the child is two years old, in 99 women living in high-risk settings.
Bibhav Acharya
University of California-San Francisco, CA·Public Health & Epidemiology
Co-design INCLUDE, a digital tool combining clinic-visit stigma assessment, a health-worker dashboard and a library of stigma-reduction activities, with people living with HIV and health workers, then pre-pilot it at one clinic in Nepal.
Saltanat Childress
University of Texas at Arlington, TX·Public Health & Epidemiology·Early-career
Adapt three evidence-based programs, Multiple Family Groups, School Children and Their Families, and financial economic empowerment, to the culture and needs of families in Kyrgyzstan using a community-engaged approach with local partners.
The school
University of Southern California: 47 labs on PI Pages, $1.3B a year on research, 882 research doctorates a year.
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