Our comprehensive review and meta- analysis of these experiments find suggestive evidence of health benefits associated with investments in early life , income support , and health insurance interventions .
Housing and neighborhood trials had no effect on the outcomes included in the meta-analyses .
A positive effect of the trial on its primary socioeconomic outcome was associated with higher odds of reporting health improvements .
Early life , income , and health insurance interventions have the potential to improve health .
Policy Points Social policies might not only improve economic well-being , but also health .
Health policy experts have therefore advocated for investments in social policies both to improve population health and potentially reduce health system costs .
Since the 1960s , a large number of social policies have been experimentally evaluated in the United States .
Some of these experiments include health outcomes , providing a unique opportunity to inform evidence -based policymaking .
CONTEXT Insurers and health care providers are investing heavily in nonmedical social interventions in an effort to improve health and potentially reduce health care costs .
Early Childhood Investments Substantially Boost Adult Health
Look After the Child Investing in children has been demonstrated to improve their lives , both during the school-age years and afterward , as assessed by outcomes such as employment and income ; furthermore , these investments often help those in the most need . Campbell et al. ( p. 1478 ) report that these investments can also lead to improved adult health . Results from a r and omized and intensive intervention that involved 122 children in four cohorts recruited in the 1970s suggest that full-day child care for the first 5 years of life has produced adults in their 30s with better metabolic and cardiovascular health measures . Large investments in preschool children ’s education , health care , and nutrition provide long-term health benefits . High- quality early childhood programs have been shown to have substantial benefits in reducing crime , raising earnings , and promoting education . Much less is known about their benefits for adult health . We report on the long-term health effects of one of the oldest and most heavily cited early childhood interventions with long-term follow-up evaluated by the method of r and omization : the Carolina Abecedarian Project ( ABC ) . Using recently collected biomedical data , we find that disadvantaged children r and omly assigned to treatment have significantly lower prevalence of risk factors for cardiovascular and metabolic diseases in their mid-30s . The evidence is especially strong for males . The mean systolic blood pressure among the control males is 143 millimeters of mercury ( mm Hg ) , whereas it is only 126 mm Hg among the treated . One in four males in the control group is affected by metabolic syndrome , whereas none in the treatment group are affected . To reach these conclusions , we address several statistical challenges . We use exact permutation tests to account for small sample sizes and conduct a parallel bootstrap confidence interval analysis to confirm the permutation analysis . We adjust inference to account for the multiple hypotheses tested and for nonr and om attrition . Our evidence shows the potential of early life interventions for preventing disease and promoting health
Our comprehensive review and meta- analysis of these experiments find suggestive evidence of health benefits associated with investments in early life , income support , and health insurance interventions .
Housing and neighborhood trials had no effect on the outcomes included in the meta-analyses .
A positive effect of the trial on its primary socioeconomic outcome was associated with higher odds of reporting health improvements .
Early life , income , and health insurance interventions have the potential to improve health .
Policy Points Social policies might not only improve economic well-being , but also health .
Health policy experts have therefore advocated for investments in social policies both to improve population health and potentially reduce health system costs .
Since the 1960s , a large number of social policies have been experimentally evaluated in the United States .
Some of these experiments include health outcomes , providing a unique opportunity to inform evidence -based policymaking .
CONTEXT Insurers and health care providers are investing heavily in nonmedical social interventions in an effort to improve health and potentially reduce health care costs .