Early childhood development (ECD) is thought to shape important schooling and lifetime productivity. Therefore, governments and international organizations such as the World Bank recently have expanded emphasis on ECD programs in developing countries. But there has been little analysis of (1) ECD programs in developing countries in general, and in particular with pre-post longitudinal data, (2) links between ECD programs in developing countries and initial school success, and (3) how ECD-related policies affect these outcomes and to what extent policy effects are mediated by family and community background and social capital. The principal project aim is to extend and analyze unique longitudinal pre- and post-policy change household and service-provider survey data on a new Filipino ECD program and to strengthen the analytical capacities of Office of Population Studies (OPS) at the University of San Carlos in Cebu in the Philippines through collaborative research.
Specific aims are: (1) To investigate various aspects of the hypothesis that this new ECD program has positive effects on ECD, using for the first time for such a purpose a large stratified random household survey from a developing country with baseline pre-treatment data and longitudinal post-program-initiation data through the age of initial schooling outcomes, all linked to data on service providers. (2) To extend an integrated longitudinal socioeconomic, psychosocial and biomedical household-service provider data base describing over four years children initially aged 0-4 and pregnant women and their families and the communities in which they live, including local social services -- a data set that will improve and expand the quality of integrated socioeconomic-psychosocial-biomedical data to measure and model socioeconomic outcomes in developing countries and that will be made available to researchers. (3) To strengthen the analytical capacity of OPS through collaborative analytical research that integrates health, nutrition, demographic and economic concerns, in addition to collaborative data collection.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Fogarty International Center (FIC)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01TW005604-05
Application #
6892370
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SNEM-3 (02))
Program Officer
Rosenthal, Joshua
Project Start
2001-05-05
Project End
2007-04-30
Budget Start
2005-05-01
Budget End
2007-04-30
Support Year
5
Fiscal Year
2005
Total Cost
$184,725
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Social Sciences
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
Behrman, Jere R; Behrman, Julia A; Perez, Nykia M (2011) Out of sync? Demographic and other social science research on health conditions in developing countries. Demogr Res 24:45-78
Duazo, Paulita; Avila, Josephine; Kuzawa, Christopher W (2010) Breastfeeding and later psychosocial development in the Philippines. Am J Hum Biol 22:725-30
Behrman, Jere R; Behrman, Julia A; Perez, Nykia M (2009) On what diseases and health conditions should new economic research on health and development focus? Health Econ 18 Suppl 1:S109-28