Growth and development in early childhood is an important period of time. Studies suggest that healthy growth in the first 5 years of a child's life may impact health factors such as a child’s readiness for school and chance of developing obesity.
Yet, surprisingly little is known about the health of Canadian children.
Gaps in data and information about the health of young children also cause delays in our ability to make policy changes or clinical recommendations.
This is where The Applied Research Group for Kids (TARGet Kids!) comes in. TARGet Kids! started in 2008; connected to 2 of the largest hospitals and 12 participating clinics, we have grown over the years and now have 11,000 + children enrolled.
TARGet Kids! is the only primary care research network for children in Canada.
Researchers have been publishing papers about our success story.
TARGet Kids! aims to improve preventive healthcare for young children to create new strategies for chronic disease prevention and improve the well-being of Canadian children and the adults that they will become.
We are learning about how to prevent disease before it starts and we help healthcare providers with new interventions to improve the health of young children.
TARGet Kids! is run by clinicians, child health researchers, and research staff at The Hospital for Sick Children and St. Michael's Hospital. Through research and partnerships with families and children, we help improve the quality of children's healthcare.
With the vision of ‘healthy children together,’ our research focusses on healthy children starting at birth and through adolescence.
This blog post summarizes the following research article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4521122/
