# The long-term health effects of the New Deal: An 80 year follow-up of 4 cohorts

> **NIH NIH R01** · STANFORD UNIVERSITY · 2020 · $547,696

## Abstract

7. PROJECT SUMMARY / ABSTRACT
There is substantial uncertainty about how important early life household and community conditions are for
later life chronic disease and aging. While a number of studies of short-term beneficial impacts support the
importance of intervening on the early life environment to improve health, data limitations have prevented long-
term follow-up studies, thus the extent to which early life policy changes would lead to declines in chronic
disease and healthier aging is unclear. In addition, it is rare that the impacts of an actual social policy in
childhood are evaluated, an approach which has clearer opportunities for translation of this evidence for
informing current social policy. We propose to use four well established cohort studies that have
complementary strengths for accomplishing our study objective: 1) the Panel Study of Income Dynamics
(PSID), which is a multi-generational nationally representative sample, 2) the Alcoa data, which follows a large
geographically diverse and fully insured cohort of manufacturing workers, 3) the Health and Retirement Study
(HRS), which follows a nationally representative sample of older Americans, and 4) the Women's Health
Initiative (WHI), which follows a large cohort of women. We will use these data sources to examine the effects
of New Deal work-relief spending on the long-term health outcomes of children growing up during the Great
Depression. Our central hypothesis, based on our prior research, is that employment from New Deal programs
will be associated with lower levels of chronic disease and lower mortality for both the children in benefitting
households, but also for children in non-benefit households living in areas that received greater amounts of
New Deal funding. To test this hypothesis we propose the following specific aims: Aim 1: Create sample
probability weights for PSID, Alcoa, HRS and WHI data to the 1940 census sample frame to enable
comparisons across studies and produce nationally representative estimates, Aim 2: Estimate the association
of parental New Deal work-relief participation on their children's later life health and mortality, Aim 3: Determine
the spillover effect of area-level New Deal expenditures on children's later life health and mortality, Aim 4: Test
the mechanisms through which parental New Deal work-relief participation and area-level New Deal
expenditures are associated with later life health and mortality. The timing of our research proposal is critical –
we now have the opportunity to examine the long-term effects of New Deal work-relief on health outcomes as
this cohort reaches older ages. It is arguably one of our best opportunities to understand the role that social
policy can play in healthy aging over the life course. This evidence will be available at a critical time when new
priorities for spending and infrastructure are being considered at local and federal levels, and the chronic
disease burden of an aging population poses new ch...

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9923530
- **Project number:** 5R01AG059791-03
- **Recipient organization:** STANFORD UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Sepideh Modrek
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $547,696
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2018-08-15 → 2023-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9923530

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9923530, The long-term health effects of the New Deal: An 80 year follow-up of 4 cohorts (5R01AG059791-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9923530. Licensed CC0.

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