# The impact of early-life nutrition on socioeconomic status, physical health and cognitive function  through middle age

> **NIH NIH R01** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2023 · $595,357

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 Nutrition is a key human capital investment, especially in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), where
hundreds of millions of children are currently undernourished and well over a billion adults were undernourished
as children. Prior evidence indicates that early-life undernutrition is associated with negative effects on physical
health, schooling attainment, cognitive skills and wage rates in young adulthood. Given that physical health and
cognitive function decline with age, it is important to ask whether early-life nutrition affects the pace of these
declines. This is a critical knowledge gap concerning the lifespan impacts of early-life nutrition. This project will
use unusually rich longitudinal data from an experimental manipulation of nutrition: the Guatemalan Institute of
Nutrition of Central America and Panama (INCAP) Nutrition Supplementation Trial Cohort (INSTC). INSTC was
initiated in 1969 as an experimental nutritional-supplementation program and a number of follow-up rounds have
been conducted. Cohort members will be in mature adulthood, 47-64 years of age, during the proposed project,
ages at which biological and cognitive aging is considerable in most LMICs.
 Specifically, the project will explore how experimentally allocated early-life nutritional supplementation affects
levels of socioeconomic, physical-health, and cognitive-function outcomes in mature adulthood (47-64 y) and
changes in these domains from early to mature adulthood. We ask: Do the nutrition intervention impacts
observed earlier in adulthood persist at later ages? Does improved childhood nutrition additionally impact
changes in these outcomes as participants age? We will explore these questions by collecting and analyzing a
comprehensive set of measures of socioeconomic status, physical health and cognitive function, many of which
we have measures in prior waves.
 The proposed study has high potential impact because of the enormous consequences of childhood
undernutrition for the health and human capital of hundreds of millions of people. The research team is uniquely
well qualified to investigate this topic; team members have made major contributions to current knowledge about
the importance of nutrition over the life-course in LMICs. By using appropriate econometrics and life-cycle human
capital models, with full access to the early childhood data, and building on previous studies, the project will
transform our understanding of early-life nutrition and the health, cognitive and socioeconomic outcomes of
mature adulthood.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10564634
- **Project number:** 1R01AG079990-01
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** JERE R BEHRMAN
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2023
- **Award amount:** $595,357
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2023-03-15 → 2028-02-29

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10564634

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10564634, The impact of early-life nutrition on socioeconomic status, physical health and cognitive function  through middle age (1R01AG079990-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10564634. Licensed CC0.

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