Varshney Nishank, Temple Judy A, Reynolds Arthur J
Humphrey School of Public Affairs, University of Minnesota, 301 19th Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States.
Human Capital Research Collaborative, University of Minnesota, 51 E River Road, Minneapolis, MN 55455, United States.
J Benefit Cost Anal. 2022 Spring;13(1):57-90. doi: 10.1017/bca.2022.4. Epub 2022 May 10.
This paper evaluates the long-term impacts of the Chicago Child-Parent Center (CPC) program, a comprehensive early childhood program launched in the 1960s, on the physical and mental health outcomes. This study follows a cohort of 1539 participants born in 1979-1980 and surveyed most recently at age 35-37 by employing a matched study design created by including all students who were enrolled in kindergarten classrooms in CPC school sites as well as entire kindergarten classrooms in a matched set of similar high-poverty schools. Using propensity score weighting that addresses potential issues with differential attrition and nonrandom treatment assignment, results reveal that CPC preschool participation is associated with significantly lower rates of adverse health outcomes such as smoking and diabetes. Further, evaluating the economic impacts of the preschool component of the program, the study finds a benefit-cost ratio in the range of 1.35 to 3.66 (net benefit: $3,896) indicating that the health benefits of the program by themselves offset the costs of the program even without considering additional benefits arising from increased educational attainment and reduced involvement in crime reported in earlier cost-benefit analyses. The findings are robust to corrections for multiple hypothesis testing, sensitivity analysis using a range of discount rates, and Monte Carlo analysis to account for uncertainty in outcomes.
本文评估了20世纪60年代启动的一项综合性幼儿项目——芝加哥儿童-家长中心（CPC）项目对身心健康结果的长期影响。本研究跟踪了1539名1979年至1980年出生的参与者，他们最近一次接受调查是在35至37岁时，采用的是匹配研究设计，该设计纳入了所有在CPC学校就读幼儿园的学生以及一组匹配的类似高贫困率学校的整个幼儿园班级。通过倾向得分加权法解决了不同损耗和非随机治疗分配的潜在问题，结果显示，参与CPC学前班与吸烟和糖尿病等不良健康结果的发生率显著降低有关。此外，在评估该项目学前部分的经济影响时，研究发现效益成本比在1.35至3.66之间（净效益：3896美元），这表明即使不考虑早期成本效益分析中报告的因教育程度提高和犯罪率降低而产生的额外效益，该项目本身的健康效益也能抵消项目成本。这些发现对于多重假设检验的校正、使用一系列贴现率的敏感性分析以及考虑结果不确定性的蒙特卡洛分析而言都是稳健的。
