Integrating kindergartener-specific questionnaires with citizen science to improve child health

On November 24, 2017, the State Council of China issued an urgent notice concerning launching a nationwide inspection of the standardization of kindergarten management and education. Triggered by several recent kindergarten abuse claims, China is aiming to reduce the occurrence of such cases in an effective way. From a lifecourse epidemiological perspective, such abuse experiences in the early life can jeopardize children's behavior, physical and especially mental health in adulthood (1–5). There are a total estimation of 239 thousand kindergartens and 82 million population aged 0–4 in China by 2016 (6, 7). Therefore, such a nationwide inspection could be considered a large-scale public health intervention program. These recent abuse cases, found out accidentally by parents at home, imply that an unknown number of adolescent and adult mental (sometimes physical) health issues may stem from what has happened but been unseen or intentionally kept hidden in kindergarten, with suspicions that during that period children were under duress and hence not capable of proper and adequate communication about abuse issues with their guardians in kindergarten.