Child Development and Adult Social and Human Capital: COHORTS

The COHORTS collaboration (Consortium Of Health Outcomes Research in Transitioning Societies) comprises five of the largest and longest running birth cohort studies in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs); Brazil, Guatemala, the Philippines, India and South Africa.

In 2017 the COHORTS collaboration secured a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to investigate the relationships between childhood development, including nutrition, cognition, social and emotional development and socioeconomic status, in relation to adult outcomes.

As part of this project we revisited participants from three of the cohorts (Guatemala, Philippines and South Africa), to collect data on adult cognitive, executive, social and emotional functioning, and social and human capital.

Fieldwork was conducted from January 2018 to July 2019. Final participant numbers are as follows: Guatemala 1268 (77.2% of eligible sample), Philippines 1327 (64.3% of eligible sample), South Africa 1402 (71.1% of eligible sample).

Since completion of fieldwork we have pooled these new data with: (i) existing data on early life circumstances, that were collected prospectively during the cohort members’ childhood and (ii) existing data from a fourth cohort, in Brazil, in which both childhood and adult data are already available.

Using our rich existing longitudinal data, together with this new data, we will address critical questions of how childhood growth, early cognitive functioning, stressors, socioeconomic status, and schooling come together to predict adult cognitive, executive and social and emotional functioning in adulthood. The results from this project will enable us to produce robust evidence to guide interventions and inform policy in low and middle-income contexts.