PURPOSE OF REVIEW: Established social gradients across a wide range of child health issues including obesity, anxiety, infectious diseases, injuries, prematurity and low birth weight suggest that much illness is avoidable and there is an imperative to intervene in this whole of society issue. This review examines recent advances in understanding of the pathways to health and health inequalities and their application to interventions to improve health equity. RECENT FINDINGS: Childrens health develops over the life course in ways that are profoundly influenced by their entire developmental ecosystem including individual, family, community and system-level factors. Interventions to address child health inequalities must include action on the structural determinants of health, a greater focus on family and community health development, and attention to the acquisition of developmental capabilities. Nascent dynamic population health initiatives that address whole developmental ecosystems such as All Children Thrive, Better Start Bradford and Generation V, hold real promise for achieving child health equity. SUMMARY: Pathways to health inequalities are driven by social and structural determinants of health. Interventions to address inequalities need to be driven less by older biomedical models, and more by prevailing ecological and complex systems models incorporating a life course health development approach.

Childhood adversity and its structural causes drive lifelong and intergenerational inequities in health and well-being. Health care systems increasingly understand the influence of childhood adversity on health outcomes but cannot treat these deep and complex issues alone. Cross-sector partnerships, which integrate health care, food support, legal, housing, and financial services among others, are becoming increasingly recognized as effective approaches address health inequities. What principles should guide the design of cross-sector partnerships that address childhood adversity and promote Life Course Health Development (LCHD)? The complex effects of childhood adversity on health development are explained by LCHD concepts, which serve as the foundation for a cross-sector partnership that optimizes lifelong health. We review the evolution of cross-sector partnerships in health care to inform the development of an LCHD-informed partnership framework geared to address childhood adversity and LCHD. This framework outlines guiding principles to direct partnerships toward life course-oriented action: (1) proactive, developmental, and longitudinal investment; (2) integration and codesign of care networks; (3) collective, community and systemic impact; and (4) equity in praxis and outcomes. Additionally, the framework articulates foundational structures necessary for implementation: (1) a shared cross-sector theory of change; (2) relational structures enabling shared leadership, trust, and learning; (3) linked data and communication platforms; and (4) alternative funding models for shared savings and prospective investment. The LCHD-informed cross-sector partnership framework presented here can be a guide for the design and implementation of cross-sector partnerships that effectively address childhood adversity and advance health equity through individual-, family-, community-, and system-level intervention.