What Do Childcare Providers Know about Environmental Influences on Children’s Health? Implications for Environmental Health Literacy Efforts

Brenda D. Koester, Stephanie Sloane, Elinor M. Fujimoto, Barbara H. Fiese, Leona Yi Fan Su

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Children are uniquely vulnerable to toxicant exposures in their environment, which can have long-lasting impacts on their health. Childcare providers are an important population to target for environmental health literacy, as most children in the United States under five years of age spend a significant number of waking hours in non-parental care. There is an increasing body of evidence that children are exposed to toxicants in the childcare environment, and yet little is known about what childcare providers know about environmental influences on the health of children in their care. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 36 home-and center-based Illinois childcare providers to better understand their knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors as they relate to environmental influences on children’s health. We found that the majority of providers had a low level of understanding of potential sources of exposure in the childcare environment, and they did not feel that environmental exposures posed a significant risk to children. Future efforts to increase environmental health literacy should focus on raising awareness and knowledge of environmental health issues for childcare providers before addressing ways that providers can reduce or prevent toxicant exposures to children in their care.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number5489
JournalInternational journal of environmental research and public health
Volume18
Issue number10
DOIs
StatePublished - May 2021

Keywords

  • Childcare providers
  • Children’s health
  • Environmental health literacy
  • Environmental literacy
  • Health communication
  • Health literacy
  • Risk communication

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Pollution
  • Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health
  • Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis

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