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Poverty’s Impact on the Developing Brain
In this paper, we discuss how socioeconomic status (SES) influences child development through poverty’s interaction with stress, caregiving, and neighborhood context. We highlight evidence that toxic stress, reduced caregiving quality, and neighborhood disadvantage impair brain development, while policy interventions such as financial assistance can buffer these effects and promote healthier developmental trajectories.
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The Power of Glasses: Evidence-Based Charitable Giving, Part 2
In the poor, rural Gansu province in China, 10-15% of young students need glasses but only 2% of those kids actually have glasses. To follow up on my previous post on the science of charitable giving, in this post I’ll briefly describe a recent study which found that simply giving these students glasses significantly increased…
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Possible link between poverty and health
About a year ago I went on a field trip to the California Science Center to dissect cow eyes with a class of third graders. I am a mentor for a 3rd grade student through an organization called I Have a Dream (IHAD). I was awestruck by how smart, funny, adorable, and happy these children…