A Head Start on Health: Early Childhood Interventions and Health Across the Life Course

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dc.contributor.advisorAndersson, Matthew
dc.contributor.authorDrevlow, Madeline
dc.contributor.departmentUniversity Scholar.en_US
dc.date.accessioned2021-05-18T12:41:22Z
dc.date.available2021-05-18T12:41:22Z
dc.date.copyright2021
dc.date.issued2021-05-18
dc.description.abstractRich theoretical and empirical literature link early childhood factors to adult health outcomes, providing evidence that health disparities start early in life and propagate throughout the life course, with non-cognitive skills being increasingly implicated in this relationship. Model preschool experiments such as Perry Preschool and Abecedarian give further support to this claim in addition to highlighting an important and perhaps more promising feature of the life course view of health – that interventions in early childhood might be leveraged to reduce the effects of early disadvantage on adult health. Despite this hopeful preliminary evidence, concerns remain over whether such experimental findings can be implemented on a broader scale. This thesis examines the role of Head Start, the United States’ largest federally funded comprehensive early childhood program, in supporting the earlier findings from model preschool programs. I address the limitations and gaps in existing Head Start literature that prevent comprehensive analysis of long-term health outcomes and give recommendations for utilizing existing longitudinal data in the Children of the NLSY79 study, including rich information on health behaviors, self-rated health status, and non-cognitive factors, that can further our understanding of Head Start’s impact on long-term health outcomes and the pathways through which early childhood interventions might act to influence adult health.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/2104/11243
dc.language.isoen_USen_US
dc.rightsBaylor University projects are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. Contact libraryquestions@baylor.edu for inquiries about permission.en_US
dc.rights.accessrightsWorldwide accessen_US
dc.titleA Head Start on Health: Early Childhood Interventions and Health Across the Life Courseen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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