A Portrait of Disadvantage: Understanding Poverty’s Influence on Child Development – PolicyLab

Last week, PolicyLab released  its newest report, A Portrait of Disadvantage: Understanding Poverty’s Influence on Child Development.

It has long been understood that children living in poverty experience poor health outcomes as a result of economic and social–emotional risk factors. For example, they face higher exposure to chronic stressors including food insecurity, unstable home environments and limited social support.

Though many other studies have examined how different factors impact child development, no other study has comprehensively looked at how the maternal, home and neighborhood risk factors associated with low socio-economic status (SES) affect children over the course of their first year of life. Understanding poverty’s influence on child development at this young age will help us develop strategies to counteract such disadvantage and remove barriers that prevent all children from growing into healthy, productive adults.