Project title: Reducing inequities in health and development through improving the compensatory capacity of universal child health and early education service.
Funder: The project is funded by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE) under Grant 2023-01130.
The project runs until 2029.
Project leader: Anna Sarkadi, Professor at Department of Public Health and Caring Sciences; Social Medicine/CHAP.
The project involves several collaborators. From the Department of Education, Uppsala University, Associate Professor Ingrid Olsson and PhD Olov Nordvall is participating.
Research problem to be addressed: Sweden makes major investments in universal child health and early education services. However, inequities in child health have increased. We propose that the reason for this paradox is that welfare services have failed to provide services proportionate to need; i.e. proportionate universalism (PU), to reduce differential exposure and differential vulnerability to health risks. The purpose of this research program is to examine the compensatory capacity of universal child health and early education services in Sweden and propose models for service provision according to the principles of PU.