Kai Hong, Kacie Dragan, and Sherry Glied from P4A's NYU Wagner Research Hub published a paper in the Journal of Health Economics exploring the health impacts of New York City’s 2014 roll-out of a Universal Pre-Kindergarten program.
Despite efforts to rigorously analyze various effects of changes to minimum wages, the research community has largely neglected the link to child development. Changes in the minimum wage may have consequences that go far beyond employment and earnings, but there is almost nothing known about these potential effects.
Using data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and other publicly available datasets, the research team will investigate:
Recent media reports have highlighted startling trends in U.S. maternal health with stark differences across racial and ethnic groups. Maternal deaths associated with pregnancy and childbirth are high when compared to other developed countries and have increased substantially over the last two decades.
Like many communities in the U.S., the Twin Cities metropolitan area has become increasingly vocal around social justice—exposing and documenting local poverty, inequity, and discrimination. Amid this wave, Hennepin County is actively seeking out population health policy opportunities to engage high-risk families and children, with the goal of developing and implementing upstream, cross-sector interventions to preserve unified, healthy families and avoid out of home placements (i.e., foster care).
Using a nationwide sample of early childcare centers, Jamie Chriqui, Julien Leider, and Rebecca M. Schermbeck assess centers’ awareness of and reported readiness for implementing updated standards from the Child and Adult Care Food Program.
Jamie Chriqui, Rebecca M. Schermbeck, and Julien Leider assess menu development, meal/snack preparation, provider meal preparation-related training, and food purchasing at early childcare centers.
Late elementary school and middle school has long been seen as a critical point in child development, and several studies have shown that students experience a decline in performance when they transition from elementary to middle or middle to high school, and that they do not recover from these dips. Local school boards may choose to operate schools as K-8 combined elementary and middle schools or as K-5 elementary schools with separate middle schools, but little is known about how this structuring of grades might influence health outcomes or behavior.
Leveraging more than a decade’s worth of data, the researchers will examine relationships between at-risk children’s health and education outcomes, as well as access to public services. This is vital information as states across the country, and Tennessee in particular, adopt new laws and resolutions that encompass a wide range of policy actions related to child health and education.
Researchers at Brown University released a working paper analyzing the effects of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) on nutritional quality of purchased foods. Examining seven years of transaction records at a large U.S. grocery chain, the team found that SNAP participation had only a small effect on the nutritional quality of purchased foods.
There’s Much to Gain by Investing in High-Quality, Early Childhood Education Programs
In the 2018 midterm elections, candidates across the political spectrum ran on platforms that included expansion and support of early education and childcare assistance programs.