Sally Grantham-McGregor: pioneer in early childhood development

Abstract

In a study in a poor neighbourhood in Kingston, Grantham-McGregor and a nurse visited mothers with young children weekly for 9 months with toys to encourage play and stimulation, and observed a large improvement in the children's development. With her colleagues, she worked on making the intervention more feasible and low cost, with community health workers doing the visits with home-made toys. Maureen Black, Professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, USA, Distinguished Fellow, RTI International, and a series coauthor describes her as an “innovative and dedicated researcher, driven to identify effective, low-cost caregiving strategies to overcome the inequities experienced by millions of children”.