Variations in risk, resilience, and protective factors for cognitive and socioemotional development among 3-to 4-year-old children in Nigeria: A multilevel modeling

This study used multilevel modeling to examine the dynamics between the layers of influence associated with literacy, cognitive , socioemotional outcomes of 3-to 4-year-old children in Nigeria. The study used data from the fifth round of the Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), , adapted the social-ecological model of child development and the social determinants of health framework to investigate the interaction between a child's microsystem, engagement with the mesosystem, the politico-cultural climate, and how they are associ-ated with selected Early Childhood Development Index (ECDI) domains. The final sample of 11,207 mother-child dyads (n = 22,414; state mean = 303; ethnicities - Hausa 48%, Yoruba 10%, Igbo 11%, and others combined 31%) comprised three-year-old children (51%), females (49%). Results indicated a 29% variation in child outcomes accounted for by the grouping structure of the states, that diminished with the addition of household-level pre-dictors. On average, a child not attending early education (-1.93), not having books (-1.32), being in the poorer wealth quintiles (-.91), mother having informal or no education (.82), and ethnicity, specifically being Hausa (-.21) were associated with predicted lower child development outcome score. At the state level, low maternal education was the most significant predictor of child development outcomes.Findings will add value to policy interventions as states reconsider their strategy and funding obligations to ECD, addressing poverty at the family level, and promotion of girl/maternal education.