Developmental Health Effects of Human Development Policies.

August 2006

Daniel P. Keating, University of Michigan and Sharon Z. Simonton, University of Michigan.

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Abstract

A growing body of evidence documents the substantial effects on health of social policies whose focus is not on health per se, such as those in this volume that explicitly target areas such as income support, housing, civil rights, and other social policy arenas. In this chapter, we examine evidence for the health effects of policies designed to address human development, with a particular emphasis on early childhood development policies. Because human development policies have typically played a minor role in policy discussions about health, we first define their scope and outline a general conceptual framework to support their relevance. We then review evidence to illustrate their connection with health.



Keywords:
Child Well-being and Child Development, Health, Health Insurance, and Health Care