Key points

• Child public health is important in its own right, but also because children represent the future.

• Although child health has improved greatly over the last century, great disparities still exist between the health of children in different social groups and relative poverty remains a key determinant of child health both in the UK and worldwide.

• Family relationships are an important determinant of many risk factors for poor health across the life course and play a key role in the transmission of social inequalities.

• Other challenges facing child public health in the twenty-first century include the rise in emotional and behavioural disorders, childhood obesity, chronic disease and disability, the continuing globalisation and commercialisation of children’s lives, and climate change.

• The promotion of child health requires action at the level of the individual, family, school and society and demands cross-disciplinary and intersectoral collaboration.

Children and their health

Why is child public health important?

Childhood is important in its own right, but children also represent the future: they are the adults (and the parents) of tomorrow. Because of their vulnerability, children deserve particular care and protection from society, and their right to this protection, enabling them to flourish, enjoy life, health, identity, education and other fundamental goods, is enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Although most countries are signatories to this convention, many children worldwide – and some in the UK – are still denied basic rights through accident of birth, or through the ignorance or inadequacy of adults.