Prophecies of childhood: how children's social environments and biological propensities affect the health of populations.

During the past decade, important steps have been taken globally to improve the status of children. Concurrently, significant advances have been made toward understanding how child development is shaped by transactions between biological and environmental influences. Despite such advances, ongoing adversities in the lives of children worldwide undermine the development of individuals and thus the health of nations. The primary tenets of this paper are that: children continue to suffer a disproportionate share of the world's adversities; exposure to early adversities is not only associated with increased morbidity during childhood, but also across the lifespan; and recent advances in understanding the operation and ontogeny of stress-response systems can help explain how adversity is translated into lifelong effects on health. Acknowledging the long-lasting sequelae of childhood adversity has important implications for public health and society.