# Monitoring Social Change: Health and Human Capital from Childhood to Adulthood

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2021 · $624,134

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
A recent global estimate suggests that nearly 250 million young children fail to reach their cognitive potential,
leading to widening gaps in health and human capital as these children become adults. Many children who fail
to meet their potential have suffered from major life events that lead to downward spirals in health, cognitive
development, and ultimately lower human capital accumulation. China’s major social, economic, and
demographic transitions have led to more than a third of all children and adolescents in rural China who are left
behind by one or both parents who migrate for job opportunities. Yet, there are fundamental gaps in
understanding: (1) the mechanisms through which such major life events affect health and development; and
(2) the moderating and mediating factors that may buffer these impacts on human capital. The China Health
and Nutrition Survey (CHNS) is an NIH-funded study of more than 41,000 individuals followed over 35 years,
capturing dramatic and rapid modernization- and environment-related changes in individual, household and
community environments. The CHNS offers high quality, unique and extraordinary, intergenerational data that
capture the interdependent biological, health, social, and environmental factors that affect child development
over time and under conditions of enormous environmental change (e.g., the end of the one-child policy,
migration of adults to seek work, leaving their children behind with grandparents, and closures of village
schools sending children away from their families to attend boarding schools). We propose data collection from
individuals aged 0-45 years in an additional round in 2021, preserving the continuity of CHNS, while adding
new measures of age-specific cognitive and non-cognitive skills, parental, school and community investments.
We propose data collection and dissemination of this ongoing and valuable public resource. These data will
provide the unique opportunity to understand complex biological, social, and environmental dynamics of
multiple dimensions of human capital in context of new social, economic and demographic shifts. We propose
to identify life-stage-specific exposures that predict cognitive function, school attainment, and height and test
hypotheses about how investments in health, nutrition, and education shape human capital and foster
resilience in the face of rapid changes. In addition, we propose to identify how changing dietary patterns,
including intakes of sodium, potassium, and “modern diets” relate to body mass, waist circumference, and
blood pressure from youth into adulthood (ages 0-45 years). Adding an 11th wave of multipurpose data will
augment the already high value and utility of the CHNS, by including an expanded focus on cognitive and non-
cognitive skills, parental, school and community investments, allowing for the study of the dynamics and early
life antecedents of human capital accumulation, with a focus on modifiable factors with pote...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10125171
- **Project number:** 5R01HD030880-26
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** PENNY GORDON-LARSEN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $624,134
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 1994-08-15 → 2025-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10125171

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10125171, Monitoring Social Change: Health and Human Capital from Childhood to Adulthood (5R01HD030880-26). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10125171. Licensed CC0.

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