Early life adverse environmental, nutrition and infection factors are associated with lower developmental scores in Pakistani children at 5 years: a cohort study

BackgroundThe effects of multiple early adverse psychosocial and biological factors on child development at preschool age in deprived settings are not fully understood.MethodsThe ‘Etiology, Risk Factors and Interactions of Enteric Infections and Malnutrition and the Consequences for Child Health and Development’ (MAL-ED) project followed children from eight countries, recording sociodemographic, nutritional, illness, enteroinfection biomarkers and scores for quality of home environment (Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment (HOME)), development (Bayley) and maternal depression during the first year of life. In the Pakistan cohort, we investigated associations of these early factors with Z-scores (derived from the eight participating countries) of three developmental outcomes at 5 years: Executive Functions (Z-EF), the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale for Intelligence (Z-WPPSI) and the externalising behaviours component of the Strength and Difficulties test (Z-externalising behaviours).ResultsMost children had 5-year development measurements below other MAL-ED countries (Z-EF