Efficacy of delivery models in early intervention: Findings from Germany's nurse-family partnership on family and child welfare services and pediatric medical incidents in high-risk families.

Background: This study examines the efficacy of two different delivery models of the ProKind intervention, a German adaptation of the Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP): The continuous model (CM) with visits exclusively delivered by NFP-trained midwives, and a tandem model (TM) with visits delivered by a midwife during pregnancy and a social worker postnatally.

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness of different delivery models in the ProKind intervention on reducing surveillance by the child protection service (CPS), foster care placements, and pediatric medical incidents.

Participants And Setting: 755 pregnant disadvantaged women were randomized into intervention (n = 394) and control groups (n = 361).

For Better or Worse? Subjective Expectations and Cost-Benefit Trade-Offs in Health Behavior: An Application to Lockdown Compliance in the United Kingdom.

We study the determinants of voluntary compliance in the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. Using rich data on subjective expectations we collected during the spring 2020 lockdown in the UK, we estimate a simple model of compliance choice with uncertain costs and benefits whose estimates quantify the utility trade-offs underlying compliance. Using these estimates, we decompose group differences in compliance into components due to preferences vis-à-vis expectations and compute the monetary compensation required for different groups to comply.

Maternal and Child Health Following 2 Home Visiting Interventions vs Control: Five-Year Follow-Up of a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Home-based interventions targeting socially disadvantaged families may help to improve maternal and child health. Only a few studies have investigated how different staffing models affect early home visiting program outcomes.

Objective: To assess the effects of 2 staffing models of an early childhood intervention on mother and child outcomes.

Severe prenatal shocks and adolescent health: Evidence from the Dutch Hunger Winter.

This paper investigates health impacts at the end of adolescence of prenatal exposure to multiple shocks, by exploiting the unique natural experiment of the Dutch Hunger Winter. At the end of World War II, a famine occurred abruptly in the Western Netherlands (November 1944-May 1945), pushing the previously and subsequently well-nourished Dutch population to the brink of starvation. We link high-quality military recruits data with objective health measurements for the cohorts born in the years surrounding WWII with newly digitised historical records on calories and nutrient composition of the war rations, daily temperature, and warfare deaths.

Early Home Visits and Health Outcomes in Low-Income Mothers and Offspring: 18-Year Follow-Up of a Randomized Clinical Trial.

Importance: Individuals with low income may have heightened rates of obesity and hypertension.

Objective: To determine whether prenatal and infancy home visitation by nurses reduces maternal and offspring obesity and hypertension.

Design, Setting, And Participants: This randomized clinical trial of prenatal and infancy nurse home visitation in a public health care system in Memphis, Tennessee, enrolled 742 women with no previous live births and at least 2 sociodemographic risk factors (unmarried, <12 years of education, unemployed) from June 1, 1990, through August 31, 1991.

Risk factors for natural menopause before the age of 45: evidence from two British population-based birth cohort studies.

Background: Menopause that occurs before the age of 45 and is not medically induced (referred to here as 'early natural menopause') affects around one in 10 women and has serious health consequences. These consequences include increased risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and type 2 diabetes.

Methods: We investigate risk factors for the onset of natural menopause before the age of 45 in two population-based prospective cohort studies in Britain: the 1958 cohort following 8959 women and the 1970 cohort following 8655 women.

LongITools: Dynamic longitudinal exposome trajectories in cardiovascular and metabolic noncommunicable diseases.

The current epidemics of cardiovascular and metabolic noncommunicable diseases have emerged alongside dramatic modifications in lifestyle and living environments. These correspond to changes in our "modern" postwar societies globally characterized by rural-to-urban migration, modernization of agricultural practices, and transportation, climate change, and aging. Evidence suggests that these changes are related to each other, although the social and biological mechanisms as well as their interactions have yet to be uncovered.

A Demonstration Study of the Transcendental Meditation Program.

This manuscript presents a demonstration study of (QT), a classroom-based Transcendental Meditation intervention. The aim of the study is to assess the feasibility of implementing and evaluating QT in two pilot settings in the United Kingdom and Ireland. This study contributes to the field by targeting middle childhood, testing efficiency in two settings operating under different educational systems, and including a large array of measures.

The consequences of early menopause and menopause symptoms for labour market participation.

Using a difference-in-difference estimator we identify the causal impact of early menopause and menopause symptoms on the time women spend in employment through to their mid-50s. We find the onset of early natural menopause (before age 45) reduces months spent in employment by 9 percentage points once women enter their 50s compared with women who do not experience early menopause. Early menopause is not associated with a difference in full-time employment rates.

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.

The economic costs of child maltreatment in UK.

Child maltreatment is a major public health problem with significant consequences for individual victims and for society. In this paper, we quantify for the first time the economic costs of fatal and nonfatal child maltreatment in the UK in relation to several short-, medium-, and long-term outcomes ranging from physical and mental health problems to labor market outcomes and welfare use. We combine novel regression analysis of rich data from the National Child Development Study and the English Longitudinal Study of Aging with secondary evidence to produce an incidence-based estimate of the lifetime costs of child maltreatment from a societal perspective.

Overweight and obesity at age 19 after pre-natal famine exposure.

Background: Weight for height has been used in the past as an indicator of obesity to report that prenatal exposure to the Dutch famine of 1944-1945 determined subsequent obesity. Further evaluation is needed as unresolved questions remain about the possible impact of social class differences in fertility decline during the famine and because being overweight is now defined by a Body Mass Index (BMI: kg/m) from 25 to <30 and obesity by a BMI of 30 or more.

Methods: We studied heights and weights of 371,100 men in the Netherlands born between 1943 and 1947 and examined for military service at age 19.

Impact of lockdown on key workers: findings from the COVID-19 survey in four UK national longitudinal studies.

Background: Key workers played a pivotal role during the national lockdown in the UK's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Although protective measures have been taken, the impact of the pandemic on key workers is yet to be fully elucidated.

Methods: Participants were from four longitudinal age-homogeneous British cohorts (born in 2001, 1990, 1970 and 1958).

Evaluating access to health and care services during lockdown by the COVID-19 survey in five UK national longitudinal studies.

Objective: Access to health services and adequate care is influenced by sex, ethnicity, socioeconomic position (SEP) and the burden of comorbidities. Our study aimed to assess whether the COVID-19 pandemic further deepened these already existing health inequalities.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

The effects of home visiting on mother-child interactions: Evidence from a randomized trial using dynamic micro-level data.

Background: Home visiting programs constitute an important policy to support vulnerable families with young children. One of their principal aims is to improve infant-parent relationships, so a key measure of their effectiveness is based on observational measures of parent-children interactions. In the present study we provide novel evidence on the effectiveness of home visiting programs in improving mother-child interactions within a randomized controlled trial (RCT) of the Pro Kind program.

Influence of childhood socioeconomic position and ability on mid-life cognitive function: evidence from three British birth cohorts.

Background: Childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) is robustly associated with cognitive function later in life. However, it is unclear whether this reflects a direct relationship, or an indirect association via modifiable factors such as educational attainment and occupation. We sought to clarify these associations using retrospectively harmonised data from three ongoing British birth cohorts.

Building resilient societies after COVID-19: the case for investing in maternal, neonatal, and child health.

Resilient societies respond rapidly and effectively to health challenges and the associated economic consequences, and adapt to be more responsive to future challenges. Although it is only possible to recognise resilience retrospectively, the COVID-19 pandemic has occurred at a point in human history when, uniquely, sufficient knowledge is available on the early-life determinants of health to indicate clearly that a focus on maternal, neonatal, and child health (MNCH) will promote later resilience. This knowledge offers an unprecedented opportunity to disrupt entrenched strategies and to reinvest in MNCH in the post-COVID-19 so-called new normal.

Prenatal and Infancy Nurse Home Visiting and 18-Year Outcomes of a Randomized Trial.

Objectives: Given earlier effects found in randomized clinical trials of the Nurse-Family Partnership, we examined whether this program would improve 18-year-old first-born youths' cognition, academic achievement, and behavior and whether effects on cognitive-related outcomes would be greater for youth born to mothers with limited psychological resources (LPR) and on arrests and convictions among females.

Methods: We enrolled 742 pregnant, low-income women with no previous live births and randomly assigned them to receive either free transportation for prenatal care plus child development screening and referral (control; = 514) or prenatal and infant home nurse visit (NV) plus transportation and screening ( = 228). Assessments were completed on 629 18-year-old first-born offspring to evaluate these primary outcomes: (1) cognitive-related abilities (nonverbal intelligence, receptive language, and math achievement) and (2) behavioral health (internalizing behavioral problems, substance use and abuse, sexually transmitted infections, HIV risk, arrests, convictions, and gang membership).

Prenatal and Infancy Nurse Home Visiting Effects on Mothers: 18-Year Follow-up of a Randomized Trial.

Background: Prenatal and infancy home-visiting by nurses is promoted as a means of improving maternal life-course, but evidence of long-term effects is limited. We hypothesized that nurse-visitation would lead to long-term reductions in public-benefit costs, maternal substance abuse and depression, and that cost-savings would be greater for mothers with initially higher psychological resources.

Methods: We conducted an 18-year follow-up of 618 out of 742 low-income, primarily African-American mothers with no previous live births enrolled in an randomized clinical trial of prenatal and infancy home visiting by nurses.

Preconception health in England: a proposal for annual reporting with core metrics.

There is growing interest in preconception health as a crucial period for influencing not only pregnancy outcomes, but also future maternal and child health, and prevention of long-term medical conditions. Successive national and international policy documents emphasise the need to improve preconception health, but resources and action have not followed through with these goals. We argue for a dual intervention strategy at both the public health level (eg, by improving the food environment) and at the individual level (eg, by better identification of those planning a pregnancy who would benefit from support to optimise health before conception) in order to raise awareness of preconception health and to normalise the notion of planning and preparing for pregnancy.

The Effects of Two Influential Early Childhood Interventions on Health and Healthy Behaviour.

This paper examines the long-term impacts on health and healthy behaviors of two of the oldest and most widely cited U.S. early childhood interventions evaluated by the method of randomization with long-term follow-up: the Perry Preschool Project (PPP) and the Carolina Abecedarian Project (ABC).

Early Health Shocks, Intra-household Resource Allocation and Child Outcomes.

An open question in the literature is whether families compensate or reinforce the impact of child health shocks. Discussions usually focus on one dimension of child investment. This paper examines multiple dimensions using household survey data on Chinese child twins whose average age is 11.

Bayesian Exploratory Factor Analysis.

This paper develops and applies a Bayesian approach to Exploratory Factor Analysis that improves on classical approaches. Our framework relies on dedicated factor models and simultaneously determines the number of factors, the allocation of each measurement to a unique factor, and the corresponding factor loadings. Classical identification criteria are applied and integrated into our Bayesian procedure to generate models that are stable and clearly interpretable.