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57 Wash. U. J. L. & Pol'y 103 (2018)
Early Life Impacts on Later Life Health and Economic Outcomes

handle is hein.journals/wajlp57 and id is 113 raw text is: Early Life Impacts on Later Life Health and Economic Outcomes Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach* INTRODUCTION What are the lasting impacts of childhood events? Scientists across a variety of fields have found that acute negative life events result in important later life harms. For example, childhood exposure to famine or food deprivation permanently scars those who survive, resulting in increased obesity, schizophrenia and disability rates in adulthood.' Similarly, survivors of the 1918 pandemic flu grew up to earn lower wages, and are more likely to become disabled in later life.2 Experiencing extreme malnutrition in early life has been shown to impact brain development, with brain growth diminished among children who were malnourished in infancy.3 Building on these findings, an important next question is whether more commonplace deprivation during childhood-such as growing up in poverty-also impairs adult outcomes? If so, how large are the impacts? Can they be ameliorated by policies aimed at reducing poverty? Are there particular ages when deprivation is particularly harmful? The answers to these questions are vitally important to understand the level and timing of investments in reducing poverty in early life. A growing body of literature seeks to address these questions, and suggests that investments in children are more important to our nation's long-term economic well-being than is typically understood.4 * Schanzenbach is the Margaret Walker Alexander Professor of Social Policy and Director of the Institute for Policy Research at Northwestern University. 1. Douglas Almond & Janet Currie, Killing Me Softly: The Fetal Origins Hypothesis, J. 25 (3) ECON. PERSP. 53, 154-55, 157, 166 (2011); Douglas Almond & Bhashktar Mazumder, Health Capital and the Prenatal Environment: The Effect of Ramadan Observance During Pregnancy. 3(4) Am. Econ. J.: Applied Econ. 56 (2011). 2. Douglas Almond, Is the 1918 Influenza Pandemic Over? Long-Term Effects of In Utero Influenza Exposure in the Post-1940 U.S. Population, 114 J. POL. ECON. 672, 672 (2006). 3. Elizabeth L. Prado & Kathryn G. Dewey, Nutrition and Brain Development in Early Life, 72 NUTRITION REv. 267, 273 (2014). 4. See Douglas Almond et al., Childhood Circumstances & Adult Outcomes: Act II, (Nat'1 Bur. of Econ. Research, Working Paper No. 23017, 2017); Hilary W. Hoynes & Diane Whitmore Schanzenbach, Safety Net Investments in Children, BROOKINGS PAPERS ON ECON. ACTIVITY (forthcoming 2018), https://www.brookings.edu/bpea-articles/safety-net-investments-in-children/. 103

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