Early Stimulation and Enhanced Preschool: A Randomized Trial.

Objectives: To estimate the impacts of 2 interventions, early stimulation (ES) for children aged <3 years and enhanced preschool (EP) for children aged 3+ years, and their interactions.

Methods: In Odisha, India, 192 villages were randomly assigned to ES or to no ES. Within each village, about 8 mothers with children initially aged 7 to 16 months were enrolled, receiving ES or no ES accordingly (n = 1449).

Lively Minds: improving health and development through play-a randomised controlled trial evaluation of a comprehensive ECCE programme at scale in Ghana.

Introduction: Many children in developing countries grow up in environments that lack stimulation, leading to deficiencies in early years of development. Several efficacy trials of early childhood care and education (ECCE) programmes have demonstrated potential to improve child development; evidence on whether these effects can be sustained once programmes are scaled is much more mixed. This study evaluates whether an ECCE programme shown to be effective in an efficacy trial maintains effectiveness when taken to scale by the Government of Ghana (GoG).

Early Stimulation and Nutrition: The Impacts of a Scalable Intervention.

Early childhood development is becoming the focus of policy worldwide. However, the evidence on the effectiveness of scalable models is scant, particularly when it comes to infants in developing countries. In this paper, we describe and evaluate with a cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial an intervention designed to improve the quality of child stimulation within the context of an existing parenting program in Colombia, known as FAMI.

Inequality in socio-emotional skills: A cross-cohort comparison.

We examine changes in inequality in socio-emotional skills very early in life in two British cohorts born 30 years apart. We construct comparable scales using two validated instruments for the measurement of child behaviour and identify two dimensions of socio-emotional skills: 'internalising' and 'externalising'. Using recent methodological advances in factor analysis, we establish comparability in the inequality of these early skills across cohorts, but not in their average level.

Group Sessions or Home Visits for Early Childhood Development in India: A Cluster RCT.

Objectives: Poor early childhood development in low- and middle-income countries is a major public health problem. Efficacy trials have shown the potential of early childhood development interventions but scaling up is costly and challenging. Guidance on effective interventions' delivery is needed.

Effects of a scalable home-visiting intervention on child development in slums of urban India: evidence from a randomised controlled trial.

Background: An estimated 63.4 million Indian children under 5 years are at risk of poor development. Home visits that use a structured curriculum to help caregivers enhance the quality of the home stimulation environment improve developmental outcomes.

Impacts 2 years after a scalable early childhood development intervention to increase psychosocial stimulation in the home: A follow-up of a cluster randomised controlled trial in Colombia.

Background: Poor early childhood development (ECD) in low- and middle-income countries is a major concern. There are calls to universalise access to ECD interventions through integrating them into existing government services but little evidence on the medium- or long-term effects of such scalable models. We previously showed that a psychosocial stimulation (PS) intervention integrated into a cash transfer programme improved Colombian children's cognition, receptive language, and home stimulation.

Cultural Adaptation of a Neurobiologically Informed Intervention in Local and International Contexts.

The relationship between early adversity and numerous negative outcomes across the lifespan is evident in a wide range of societies and cultures (e.g., Pakulak, Stevens, & Neville, 2018).

HUMAN CAPITAL GROWTH AND POVERTY: EVIDENCE FROM ETHIOPIA AND PERU.

In this paper we use high quality data from two developing countries, Ethiopia and Peru, to estimate the production functions of human capital from age 1 to age 15. We characterize the nature of persistence and dynamic complementarities between two components of human capital: health and cognition. We also explore the implications of different functional form assumptions for the production functions.

Mediating pathways in the socio-economic gradient of child development: Evidence from children 6-42 months in Bogota.

Research has previously shown a gap of near 0.5 of a standard deviation (SD) in cognition and language development between the top and bottom household wealth quartile in children aged 6-42 months in a large representative sample of low- and middle-income families in Bogota, using the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development. The gaps in fine motor and socio-emotional development were about half that size.

Concurrent Validity and Feasibility of Short Tests Currently Used to Measure Early Childhood Development in Large Scale Studies.

In low- and middle-income countries (LIMCs), measuring early childhood development (ECD) with standard tests in large scale surveys and evaluations of interventions is difficult and expensive. Multi-dimensional screeners and single-domain tests ('short tests') are frequently used as alternatives. However, their validity in these circumstances is unknown.

Why is multiple micronutrient powder ineffective at reducing anaemia among 12-24 month olds in Colombia? Evidence from a randomised controlled trial.

In Colombia's bottom socio-economic strata, 46.6% of children under two are anaemic. A prevalence of above 20% falls within the WHO guidelines for daily supplementation with multiple micronutrient powder (MNP).

Cognitive deficit and poverty in the first 5 years of childhood in Bangladesh.

Objective: We aimed to determine the timing and size of the cognitive deficit associated with poverty in the first 5 years of life and to examine the role of parental characteristics, pre- and postnatal growth, and stimulation in the home in Bangladeshi children. We hypothesized that the effect of poverty on cognition begins in infancy and is mainly mediated by these factors.

Methods: We enrolled 2853 singletons, a subsample from a pregnancy supplementation trial in a poor rural area.

Using the infrastructure of a conditional cash transfer program to deliver a scalable integrated early child development program in Colombia: cluster randomized controlled trial.

Objective: To assess the effectiveness of an integrated early child development intervention, combining stimulation and micronutrient supplementation and delivered on a large scale in Colombia, for children's development, growth, and hemoglobin levels.

Design: Cluster randomized controlled trial, using a 2 × 2 factorial design, with municipalities assigned to one of four groups: psychosocial stimulation, micronutrient supplementation, combined intervention, or control.

Setting: 96 municipalities in Colombia, located across eight of its 32 departments.

Admixture in Latin America: geographic structure, phenotypic diversity and self-perception of ancestry based on 7,342 individuals.

The current genetic makeup of Latin America has been shaped by a history of extensive admixture between Africans, Europeans and Native Americans, a process taking place within the context of extensive geographic and social stratification. We estimated individual ancestry proportions in a sample of 7,342 subjects ascertained in five countries (Brazil, Chile, Colombia, México and Perú). These individuals were also characterized for a range of physical appearance traits and for self-perception of ancestry.

Evidence on public policy: methodological issues, political issues and examples.

In this paper I discuss how evidence on public policy is generated and in particular the issue of evaluation of public policies. In economics, the issue of attribution and the identification of causal links has recently received considerable attention. Important methodological issues have been tackled and new techniques have been proposed and used.

Changes in Consumption at Retirement: Evidence from Panel Data.

Previous empirical literature has found a sharp decline in consumption during the first years of retirement, implying that individuals do not save enough for their retirement. This phenomenon is called the . We find no evidence of the retirement consumption puzzle using panel data from 1980 to 2000.

Child health in rural Colombia: determinants and policy interventions.

We study the determinants of child anthropometrics on a sample of poor Colombian children living in small municipalities. We focus on the influence of household consumption, and public infrastructure, taking into account the endogeneity of household consumption using two different sets of instruments: household assets and municipality average wage. We find that both household consumption and public infrastructure are important determinants of child health.