Childcare and Children’s Health
Ensuring policies and programs meant to support children under the age of 5 achieve their goals requires detailed, comprehensive data on the environments in which they live. However, data on the social and physical environments where children spend time (e.g., homes and daycares) for Illinois are limited.
The Illinois Childcare and Children’s Health Study (CCHS) aims to fill this important gap by hearing from parents, guardians, and childcare providers from across the state of Illinois about their experiences as a caregiver and the environments in which their kids live, grow, and play. We will develop a public-facing data dashboard so that others can leverage these data in developing policies that are responsive to the needs of children and families across the state. The results from our first survey wave will be disseminated widely in a number of ways, including summary reports and fact sheets for study participants, IGPA policy spotlights, and the peer-reviewed literature.