June 2024
Water is essential for life. The brain, heart, kidneys, and lungs require continued hydration to function, and our bodies need water for digestion, nutrient absorption, blood distribution, and so much more. While water comprises around 60% of the adult body, 75% of infants’ bodies are water. Children also drink more water per pound of body weight than adults, with infants consuming the most, whether through formula prepared with water or through breast milk.
Because our bodies need a near-constant supply of water, the availability and quality of water are critical parts of the environment that shape child development. This is particularly true during the prenatal and early childhood periods when bodies are especially sensitive to outside influences.
However, in the U.S., the systems that were once widely presumed to produce nearly universal, clean, affordable, and trustworthy water have serious gaps and challenges. Additionally, freshwater supplies are being threatened by droughts, overuse, and contamination, exacerbated by climate change.
Inequities in access to clean water are the result of decisions that we have made as
communities, states, and a nation. New decisions can reverse these inequities
and provide all people with access to clean drinking water, with profound effects on the health and well-being of our children.
This working paper from the Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment explores how water affects children’s health, learning, and behavior, and how ensuring access to safe drinking water is necessary to support the healthy development of all children. It offers specific strategies to address disparities in access to clean water and resources to take action in your community.
Sections include:
- Water is essential for life
- How water affects children’s health, learning, and behavior
- How we get our water
- Protecting children from water contaminants
- Policy solutions must begin by addressing disparities
- Resources for taking action
Suggested citation: Early Childhood Scientific Council on Equity and the Environment (2024). A Cascade of Impacts: The Many Ways Water Affects Child Development: Working Paper No. 2. Retrieved from www.developingchild.harvard.edu
Content in this guide
Related Resources
Solutions Spotlight: A Cascade of Impacts: The Many Ways Water Affects Child Development
What surrounds us—and goes into us—shapes our biology, including our brain, immune, and metabolic systems. This is particularly true during the prenatal and early childhood periods when our bodies are especially sensitive to outside influences.
InBrief | A Cascade of Impacts: The Many Ways Water Affects Child Development
Given the body’s near-constant need for water, its availability and quality are critical for child development and lifelong health. However, freshwater supplies are increasingly endangered due to extended droughts, large-scale farming of water-intensive crops in arid climates, overuse of local water sources, and toxic contamination.
Growing Up in a Warming World: How climate change is affecting the availability and safety of water in the developmental environment
Read our brief, Growing Up in a Warming World: How climate change is affecting the availability and safety of water in the developmental environment, to learn more about the direct and indirect effects of climate change and how we can protect children and address the root causes of these effects.
InBrief | Extreme Heat Affects Early Childhood Development & Health
Personal experience, common sense, and scientific evidence all confirm that temperatures are rising across the United States and globally, with record-setting heat waves occurring more frequently and lasting longer than before. Increasing temperatures and heat waves impact every cell and organ system in the human body.
Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development
The environment we create shapes the foundations of healthy development. The built environment, including the physical and social aspects of our surroundings, plays a critical role in shaping our experiences and opportunities. Children who grow up in safe, supportive, and stimulating environments are more likely to thrive.
Place Matters: What Surrounds Us Shapes Us
Every environment is infused with a combination of influences, which can have positive and negative impacts on health and development. The infographic illustrates how the influences from a child’s social, built, and natural environments—as well as the systemic factors that shape those environments—interact with each other to shape early childhood development and lifelong health.
Place Matters: An Action Guide for Policy
An Action Guide to complement the new working paper from the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child explores the influence of the built and natural environments on child development and lifelong health.
The Center Welcomes a New Council
In March 2023, the National Scientific Council on the Developing Child published its latest working paper,Place Matters: The Environment We Create Shapes the Foundations of Healthy Development. The principle that place matters is not new—caregivers, organizers, scientists, and communities, particularly Indigenous Peoples, have long understood how influences from the natural world impact us throughout our lives.