IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aph/ajpbhl/10.2105-ajph.2008.148353_9.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of a prekindergarten educational intervention on adult health: 37-Year follow-up results of a randomized controlled trial

Author

Listed:
  • Muennig, P.
  • Schweinhart, L.
  • Montie, J.
  • Neidell, M.

Abstract

Objectives. We used 37 years of follow-up data from a randomized controlled trial to explore the linkage between an early educational intervention and adult health. Methods. We analyzed data from the High/Scope Perry Preschool Program (PPP), an early school-based intervention in which 123 children were randomized to a prekindergarten education group or a control group. In addition to exploring the effects of the program on health behavioral risk factors and health outcomes, we examined the extent to which educational attainment, income, family environment, and health insurance access mediated the relationship between randomization to PPP and behavioral and health outcomes. Results. The PPP led to improvements in educational attainment, health insurance, income, and family environment Improvements in these domains, in turn, lead to improvements in an array of behavioral risk factors and health (P=.01). However, despite these reductions in behavioral risk factors, participants did not exhibit any overall improvement in physical health outcomes by the age of 40 years. Conclusions. Early education reduces health behavioral risk factors by enhancing educational attainment, health insurance coverage, income, and family environments. Further follow-up will be needed to determine the long-term health effects of PPP.

Suggested Citation

  • Muennig, P. & Schweinhart, L. & Montie, J. & Neidell, M., 2009. "Effects of a prekindergarten educational intervention on adult health: 37-Year follow-up results of a randomized controlled trial," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 99(8), pages 1431-1437.
    • Handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2008.148353_9
    DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2008.148353
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.2105/AJPH.2008.148353
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2105/AJPH.2008.148353?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Gabriella Conti & James J. Heckman & Rodrigo Pinto, 2016. "The Effects of Two Influential Early Childhood Interventions on Health and Healthy Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(596), pages 28-65, October.
    2. Geddes, Rosemary & Frank, John & Haw, Sally, 2011. "A rapid review of key strategies to improve the cognitive and social development of children in Scotland," Health Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(1), pages 20-28, June.
    3. David M. Cutler & Adriana Lleras-Muney, 2012. "Education and Health: Insights from International Comparisons," NBER Working Papers 17738, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Branislav Šprocha & Branislav Bleha, 2021. "Mortality, Health Status and Self-Perception of Health in Slovak Roma Communities," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 153(3), pages 1065-1086, February.
    5. Muennig, Peter, 2015. "Can universal pre-kindergarten programs improve population health and longevity? Mechanisms, evidence, and policy implications," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 127(C), pages 116-123.
    6. Gabriella Conti & James J. Heckman, 2012. "The Developmental Approach to Child and Adult Health," NBER Working Papers 18664, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Gabriella Conti & James J. Heckman & Rodrigo Pinto, 2016. "The Effects of Two Influential Early Childhood Interventions on Health and Healthy Behaviour," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 126(596), pages 28-65, October.
    8. Belfield, Clive R. & Kelly, Inas Rashad, 2013. "Early education and health outcomes of a 2001 U.S. Birth Cohort," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 310-325.
    9. Cawley, John, 2015. "An economy of scales: A selective review of obesity's economic causes, consequences, and solutions," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 244-268.
    10. Pietro Biroli, 2016. "Health and skill formation in early childhood," UBSCENTER - Working Papers 017, UBS International Center of Economics in Society - Department of Economics - University of Zurich.
    11. Samuel, Laura J. & Glass, Thomas A. & Thorpe, Roland J. & Szanton, Sarah L. & Roth, David L., 2015. "Household and neighborhood conditions partially account for associations between education and physical capacity in the National Health and Aging Trends Study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 67-75.
    12. David R. Williams & Lisa A. Cooper, 2019. "Reducing Racial Inequities in Health: Using What We Already Know to Take Action," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(4), pages 1-26, February.
    13. Kathleen Hibbert & Nicolle S. Tulve, 2019. "State-of-the-Science Review of Non-Chemical Stressors Found in a Child’s Social Environment," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(22), pages 1-27, November.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2008.148353_9. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.apha.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.