Social issues are among the most common and important influences on children’s physical and mental health, on how they develop and function, with consequences both during childhood and across the entire life span. In a widening spiral, children’s health problems in their turn may themselves result in social consequences that have further health-related effects.
Pediatricians, other child health professionals, teachers and psychologists, and especially parents and other family members regularly encounter numerous social forces that affect a child’s health. For any particular child, some are noticed and others go unrecognized; some are acted on, others are not. Many, such as family and poverty, have been known about for some time. Others, such as racism, have only recently been widely recognized or fully acknowledged. Still others, such as relatively new digital technologies (eg, computers, tablets, and smartphones), as well as social media, exert strong influences on child attitudes and behavior; although...
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