Grant: Knowledge Synthesis Grant

Nurturing the Next Generation project is a realist knowledge synthesis of the evidence for effective population based interventions for families in the prenatal period to the end of the first year of life. The project team consists of knowledge users from a large public health unit (Peel Public Health) and a researcher team. Peel Public Health identified a need for a realist knowledge synthesis in the area of early prenatal and infant interventions that are effective and feasible to support families as they transition into parenthood because indicators of children's social, emotional, and cognitive development in their region reveal that many children are not meeting their optimal developmental milestones. This issue is one that many public health agencies across Canada are coping with as many families do not or cannot access services during the important transition into parenthood. As a result, many children are not prepared and ready for school--which increases the pressure and demand for remediation services in schools and beyond. A preliminary exploration of the research literature on effective population based interventions found that the extensive literature in this domain is complex and highly inconsistent. This makes it difficult for policy makers with limited research training and expertise to identify strategies that would transfer to a large, multicultural, rural/urban, Canadian environment. To support their policy and programming needs, Peel Public Health recruited a team of research scientists who were acknowledged experts in the area of infant and child development, population health, realist and systematic literature reviews, and knowledge transfer. This grant will support one year of collaborative activities of the knowledge users and researchers to conduct a realist synthesis (review of the empirical literature) on effective population based strategies for families transitioning into parenthood.