Improving the Health of All Americans by Focusing on the Early Years of Life
July 1, 2009 | Issue Brief
A fact sheet from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Commission to Build a Healthier America on the early years of life.
Social Determinants of Health
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Commission to Build a Healthier America
The Commission was formed to investigate why Americans aren’t as healthy as they could be and to look outside the health care system for ways to improve health for all.
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Effect of Early Intervention on 8-Year Growth Status of Low-Birth-Weight Preterm Infants
November 1, 2009 | Journal Article
Low birth-weight babies randomized to an intervention group were taller and had larger head circumference at eight years. The intervention consisted of home visits, attendance at an educational center, parent meetings and two meals a day and lasted until 36 months. Head size was associated generally with higher IQ and improved cognitive function.
A Randomized Controlled Trial of Asthma Self-Management Support Comparing Clinic-Based Nurses and In-Home Community Health Workers
February 1, 2009 | Journal Article
Adding home health visits by community health workers for families already receiving in-clinic support from asthma nurses, gives their asthmatic children 24 more symptom-free days per year on average and also modestly improves quality of life for caregivers.
Cumulative Social Disadvantage and Child Health
April 1, 2006 | Journal Article
The authors examined social risk factors (poverty, minority race/ethnicity, low parental education and not living with both biological parents) to assess whether an accretion of risk factors had a cumulative effect on child health. They also investi ...
Health Selection and the Process of Social Stratification
December 1, 2006 | Journal Article
This study uses data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine three questions: 1) does poor health in childhood affect the amount of education completed, future occupation, labor earnings, or wealth accumulation? 2) Is childhood health a m ...
Parental Health and Children's Economic Well-Being
March 1, 2008 | Journal Article
This study sets out to discover how individual life events, and in particular poor health of the head of a family, affect children's exposure to deprivation, and if families with certain traits such as single parent household are more influenced than others.
Neighborhood Influences on the Association Between Maternal Age and Birthweight
May 1, 2008 | Journal Article
Infants with low birthweights often experience health issues both in childrenhood and in later life. This study demonstrates how certain types of neighborhoods impact the association between maternal age and an infant's birthweight.
RWJF Scholar Finds Lead in Soil Can Harm Children
April 12, 2013 | Human Capital Blog Post
RWJF Health & Society Scholar Sammy Zahran discusses his study that finds children in Detroit may be exposed to lead from contaminated soil.
News Media Framing of Childhood Obesity in the United States from 2000 to 2009
July 1, 2011 | Journal Article
An analysis of news coverage of childhood obesity suggests attention to the topic has already waned, and that media framing of the issue and its causes, which can influence public opinion, shifted over time and varied by media type.
Evaluation of Free to Grow
May 9, 2011 | Journal Article
This article describes the independent evaluation conducted of Free to Grow (FTG) based at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. Researcers compared 14 FTG sites with 14 matched Head Start agencies and communities without the program.