Intergenerational Persistence of Treatment Effects

项目摘要 美国有1500万生活在贫困线以下家庭的儿童， 从心血管疾病、糖尿病等慢性病到精神健康等健康问题 抑郁症和物质使用障碍等问题。许多儿童干预措施针对低收入群体， 和高危儿童，有证据表明，一些早期干预措施可以改善成人的健康和福祉。 然而，人们对儿童干预措施的益处是否以及如何传播知之甚少 跨越几代人。这项研究询问，从早期干预中受益的儿童长大后是否会成为 更好的父母，随之而来的是，孩子们经历的健康问题，教育挑战， 和情绪问题我们汇集了两项长期的、正在进行的前瞻性干预研究， 跟随一群孩子长大成人已发表的研究结果表明，每项干预措施都对 这是一个孩子的调整，但不知道这种影响是否会转移到下一代。第一个是 一个准实验，其中一个积极的收入冲击，由于赌场开放，导致不劳而获的现金 转移到美国印第安儿童的家庭。这些家庭已经参加了大 大烟山研究（GSMS）是一项加速的纵向队列研究，现已进入第四个十年， 干预前、干预后和成年后的详细措施。第二个是快 跟踪（FT）预防随机对照试验，随机分配891名幼儿园儿童的风险 对严重的行为问题要进行干预和控制。已发表的研究结果表明， 至少影响到26岁。这两项研究的参与者现在都是30多岁， 完成或准备另一波评估，保持较高的学习率。我们将收集 对养育风险、养育环境和养育行为的相同测量，以及 这些研究成员的5000多名后代通过一个协调的父母和后代调查，一个低成本的每日 对父母养育和儿童福祉的虚拟评估，以及高质量的教育和出生记录。我们测试 无论是积极的收入冲击，还是单独随机分配到儿童时期的FT干预， 改善未来的养育，以及随后的后代适应。对于GSMS，我们进行了创新的 扩大到所有居住在收入冲击县的8至18岁儿童， 发生了。我们测试关于哪些亚组的假设（例如，最高风险，女性，那些显示最大初始 影响）最有可能将干预措施的好处传递给自己的孩子， 机制介导干预效果。我们的研究结果将通过测试预防科学， 人力资本干预措施的影响由谁以及如何代代相传。我们的研究结果 直接谈论当代公共政策的成本和收益，因为这两种干预措施都反映了 目前为美国数百万高风险儿童和家庭提供服务的政策和计划。

PROJECT SUMMARY The 15 million children in the United States who live in families below the poverty line are at risk for serious health problems ranging from chronic conditions such as cardiovascular disease and diabetes to mental health problems such as depression and substance use disorders. Many childhood interventions target low-income and high-risk children, with evidence that some early interventions improve adult health and wellbeing. However, little is known about whether, and how, the benefits of childhood interventions get transmitted across generations. This study asks whether children who benefit from early interventions grow up to become better parents and, subsequently, have children who experience fewer health problems, educational challenges, and emotional problems. We bring together two longstanding, ongoing, prospective intervention studies that follow panels of children into adulthood. Published findings show that each intervention has positive impact on a child’s adjustment, but it is not known whether this impact transfers to the next generation. The first is a quasi-experiment in which a positive income shock due to a casino opening resulted in an unearned cash transfer to American Indian children’s families. These families had already been participating in the Great Smoky Mountains Study (GSMS), an accelerated longitudinal cohort study now entering its fourth decade, with detailed measures available pre-intervention, post-intervention, and into adulthood. The second is the Fast Track (FT) Prevention Randomized Controlled Trial that randomly assigned 891 kindergarten children at risk for serious behavior problems to intervention and control conditions. Published findings indicate positive impact at least through age 26. Participants from both studies are now in their mid-30s and are currently completing or preparing for another wave of assessments with high rates of study retention. We will collect identical measures of risks to parenting, parenting environments, and parenting behaviors and information on the over 5000 offspring of these study members via a harmonized parent and offspring survey, a low-cost daily virtual assessment of parenting and child wellbeing, and high quality educational and birth records. We test whether the positive income shock, or separately, random assignment to the FT intervention in childhood, improves future parenting and, subsequently, offspring adjustment. For GSMS, we conduct an innovative population-wide extension to include all children aged 8 to 18 living in the counties where the income shock occurred. We test hypotheses about which subgroups (e.g., highest risk, females, those showing maximal initial impact) are most likely to likely to pass on benefits of the intervention to their own children, and which mechanisms mediate intervention impact. Our findings will inform prevention science by testing whether, for whom, and how, the effects of human capital interventions are transmitted across generations. Our findings speak directly to the costs and benefits of contemporary public policy as both interventions reflect features of policies and programs that currently serve millions of high-risk children and families in the United States.