Increasing children’s attendance at preschool and improving parental mental health can help to reduce inequities in children’s mental health.

Children’s mental health is affected by where they live, learn and grow. When children have good mental health they can make friends, play and learn, and deal with challenges.

However, some children do not have the same opportunities as others. Inequities, such as a family’s economic situation, can affect children’s mental health now and into the future. These inequities are unfair and preventable. Children who experience disadvantage have a higher risk of mental health problems, so addressing challenges in the early years is critical for optimising children’s mental health and wellbeing.

The Changing Children’s Chances project examined two key strategies for promoting good mental health in children: attending preschool and having parents with good mental health. Our new research paper shows these two factors contribute to addressing inequities by helping to lay the foundations that children need to develop and maintain good mental health. This is essential to ‘stem the tide’ of mental health problems.

By using new and creative ways to analyse existing data, we demonstrated that when children’s attendance at preschool is increased and parents’ mental health is improved, the risk of poor mental health among children experiencing disadvantage is reduced. There are policy interventions available to help achieve both goals.

We can improve children’s mental health by focusing on prevention in the education and family environments. Yet, these two strategies alone to do not eliminate children’s mental health inequities. When applied to all children who experience inequities, the reductions were modest. Addressing adversity in early childhood requires stacking a range of targeted policy interventions alongside other services and initiatives. Our study highlights that we can take steps to building a solid base that helps children develop good mental health.