Socioeconomic disparities in children’s neurodevelopment before and during primary education: Evidence from Bagamoyo, Tanzania

Msilikale Walter Manyiri, Georg Loss, Susanne P Martin-Herz, Deborah Sumari, Nicolaus Gutapaka, Thabit Athuman, Sylvester Simando, Sylvia Jebiwott, Xue Wu, Karim Manji, Ally Olotu, Michelle S Hsiang and Günther Fink

PLOS ONE, 2026, vol. 21, issue 7, 1-19

Abstract: Background: Socioeconomic disparities in children’s neurodevelopment constitute a critical yet understudied developmental challenge in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), yet longitudinal evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) remains limited. This study aimed to evaluate the relationship between household wealth and neurocognitive trajectories in a cohort of Tanzanian children aged 6 months to 10 years. Methods: We randomly selected 590 children aged 6 months to 10 years in Bagamoyo district, a low to moderate-malaria-endemic area in Tanzania. Participants completed comprehensive, age-appropriate neurodevelopmental assessments. The family’s socioeconomic status was derived from their household assets. Standardized, age-adjusted neurodevelopmental scores were regressed on socioeconomic status tertiles and by developmental periods: early childhood (6 months-3 years), preschool (4–5 years), and school age (6–10 years). Results: While children from high- and low-Socioeconomic status (SES) families start with similar neurodevelopmental scores, a significant and sustained gap begins to emerge around age 2 years. This divergence results in a substantial disadvantage for children from the poorest households, with scores showing a difference of −0.36 Standard Deviation (SD) (95% CI: −0.64 to −0.08) during the preschool years and −0.41 SD (95% CI: −0.73 to −0.09) at school age. Conclusion: Our results suggest that programs targeting the preschool period may be most effective in mitigating disparities in neurodevelopment.

Date: 2026
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0354139 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 54139&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0354139

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0354139

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().