Professor Gabriella Conti

From lagging well behind most European countries in the early 1990s, the UK is now one of the highest spenders on the under-5s in Europe (OECD, 2014). One of the biggest programmes for this age group is Sure Start. It offers families with children under the age of 5 a ‘one-stop shop’ for childcare and early education, health services, parenting support, and employment advice, with the aim of improving children’s school readiness, health, and social and emotional development.

There is growing interest in preconception health as a crucial period for influencing not only pregnancy outcomes, but also future maternal and child health, and prevention of long-term medical conditions.

DynaHEALTH is a research consortium funded by the European Commission through the Horizon 2020 research programme. It was established to help solve the societal challenge of an ageing population and the associated burden of non-communicable diseases related to obesity and type 2 diabetes (T2D).

Birth weight is the most widely used indicator of neonatal health. It has been consistently shown to relate to a variety of outcomes throughout the life cycle. Lower birth weight babies have worse health and cognition from childhood, lower educational attainment, wages, and longevity. But what's in birth weight? What are the aspects of the prenatal environment that birth weight actually reflect?

We examine changes in inequality in socio-emotional skills very early in life in two British cohorts born 30 years apart. We construct socio-emotional scales comparable across cohorts for both boys and girls, using two validated instruments for the measurement of child behaviour.

Do households value access to free health insurance when making labor supply decisions? We answer this question using the introduction of universal health insurance in Mexico, the Seguro Popular (SP), in 2002.

Preliminary study estimating the lifetime costs of child abuse and neglect.

We present the first comprehensive evidence on the health impacts of the introduction and expansion of a large non-contributory health insurance program in Mexico, the Seguro Popular (SP).

This article examines the long-term impacts on health and healthy behaviour of two of the oldest and most widely cited US early childhood interventions evaluated by the method of randomisation with long-term follow-up.

Health insurance and child health: evidence from Mexico

This study compares twins, where one has suffered a health shock and the other has not, investigating how the family evens out the outcomes for the children.

This paper examines the long-term impacts on health and healthy behaviors of two of the oldest and most widely cited U.S. early childhood interventions evaluated by the method of randomization with long-term follow-up.

This paper develops and applies a Bayesian approach to Exploratory Factor Analysis that improves on ad hoc classical approaches.

Early childhood investments substantially boost adult health