Education and Health Across the Life course in Guatemala

描述（由申请人提供）：迫切需要澄清和量化正规学校教育和一般教育在成人健康发展和后代健康方面的独立作用，特别是在资源特别有限的发展中国家。以前的大多数研究都是横断面的，是在总体而不是家庭一级进行的，或者没有考虑到入学率的决定因素、现有学校教育的质量，或者学校教育对健康决定因素的影响，如工资和生产力、移民和婚姻。我们的研究解决了现有文献的大部分局限性。研究的背景是危地马拉东方区的四个村庄以及这些社区的人迁移到的地方。我们研究的一个独特之处在于，它建立在35年的数据收集和与这些人的互动基础上。从1969年开始，父母和孩子参加了中美洲和巴拿马营养研究所（INCAP）的一项著名的纵向研究，该研究收集了丰富的关于家庭环境、成长、认知的数据

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): There is a pressing need to clarify and quantify the independent role of formal schooling and of education in general on the development of adult health and the health of subsequent generations,especially in developing countries where resources are particularly limiting. Most previous research has been cross-sectional, has been conducted at the aggregate rather than the household level, or has not considered either the determinants of school attendance, the quality of the schooling available, or the impact of schooling on determinants of health such as wages and productivity, migration, and marriage. Our study addresses most of the limitations of the existing literature. The setting is four villages in the Oriente (Eastern) region of Guatemala and the localities to where people from these communities migrated. A unique feature of our study is that it builds upon 35 years of data collection and interaction with these individuals. Beginning in 1969, parents and children participated in a well-known longitudinal study by the Institute of Nutrition in Central America and Panama (INCAP) that is rich in data about home environment, growth, cognitive development, diet and morbidity. Subsequent follow-ups of the children, and in some cases their own children, have been conducted in 1988, 1996-1999, and most recently in 2002-2003. Our study thus links prospectively collected data on pre-schooling cognitive functioning, investments in children's schooling, educational achievment, and health status and lifestyle in adulthood. Thus we are able to look forward at the pathways through which schooling may operate, and backward at the factors that might determine schooling (and also, independently, health outcomes). Our study is a collaboration between accomplished researchers in the disciplines of epidemiology, anthropology, economics, and nutrition, who have the experience necessary for the multidisciplinary nature of the study. Members of the research team have a successful history of collaboration, in some cases over decades, in conducting and analyzing field studies and other research.