Effects of Early Childhood Health on Later Life Cognitive Functioning: Evidence from Matlab Bangladesh

Early childhood health and nutrition interventions have been shown to improve the health status of young. It is believed that early life circumstances are crucial to success later in life. Yet causal evidence that the benefits of early childhood health interventions continue into adolescence and adulthood is sparse. This paper exploits a quasi-random placement of the Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Program in Bangladesh and the rolling out of the program over time to determine whether children who were eligible to receive child health interventions when they were young, had better cognitive functioning at ages 8-14. I find the program lead to a 0.38 standard deviation increase in cognitive functioning. The effect remained the same after controlling for educational attainment highlighting that educational attainment is not a good proxy for cognitive functioning. 1 I am grateful to Sandra Black, Andrew Foster, Nizam Kahn, Randall Kuhn, Jane Menken, Terra McKinnish, Claus Portner, Sarah Reber, Paul Schulz, Shareen Joshi, and anonymous NIH reviewers for their helpful comments and aid with understanding the data and the study site, and Lauren Calimeris for her research assistance. This paper has been generously supported by the Council on Research and Creative Work at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and the National Institute for Child and Human Development.