Does childcare influence socio-economic inequalities in unintentional injury?
Background In recent decades the proportion of infants and young children being cared for in childcare has increased. Little is known about the impact that non-parental care has on childhood unintentional injury and whether this varies by socioeconomic group. Methods Using data from a contemporary UK cohort of children at age 9 months (n = 18 114) and 3 years (n = 13 718), we used Poisson regression to explore the association between childcare type (parental, informal, formal) and the risk of unintentional injury, overall and by socio-economic group. Results At age 9 months there was no overall association between childcare and injury. However, when stratifying the analyses, infants from higher socio-economic groups were less likely to be injured if they were cared for in formal childcare (compared with being cared for only by a parent), whereas those from lower social groups were more likely to be injured. At age 3 years informal childcare was associated with an increased risk of inju
