title: The Effects of Two Influential Early Childhood Interventions on Health and Healthy Behaviour.
abstract: This paper examines the long-term impacts on health and healthy behaviors of two of the oldest and most widely cited U.S. early childhood interventions evaluated by the method of randomization with long-term follow-up: the Perry Preschool Project (PPP) and the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC). There are pronounced gender effects strongly favoring boys, although there are also effects for girls. Dynamic mediation analyses show a significant role played by improved childhood traits, above and beyond the effects of experimentally enhanced adult socioeconomic status. These results show the potential of early life interventions for promoting health.
authors.affiliation: Senior Lecturer in Health Economics at the Department of Applied Health Research at University College London; and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, London.
authors.forename: Gabriella
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Conti
authors.affiliation: Henry Schultz Distinguished Service Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago; Director, Center for the Economics of Human Development, University of Chicago; Co-Director of the Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Global Working Group; a Research Fellow at the American Bar Foundation; and an affiliate of the Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics, University of Southern California.
authors.forename: James
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Heckman
authors.affiliation: Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics at UCLA.
authors.forename: Rodrigo
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pinto
keywords: Abecedarian Project; Health; Perry Preschool Project; early childhood intervention; randomized trial; social experiment