Baby's First Years (BFY), New York City, New Orleans, Omaha, and Twin Cities, 2018-2022

The overall goal of the Baby's First Years study is to assess the causal role played by household income in affecting children's early cognitive, socio-emotional, and brain development. Recent advances in developmental neuroscience suggest that experiences early in life have profound and enduring impacts on the developing brain. Family economic resources shape the nature of many of these experiences, yet the extent to which they affect children's development is unknown. The Baby's First Years project is the first randomized controlled trial to provide estimates of the causal impacts of unconditional cash gifts on the cognitive, socio-emotional, and brain development of infants and young children in low-income U.S. families. Specifically, 1,000 recruited mothers of infants with incomes below the federal poverty line from four diverse U.S. communities are receiving monthly cash gift payments by debit card. Mothers were initially told the gifts would last for the first 40 months of their child's life, but we have secured funding to continue the payments for three additional years (i.e., for a total of 76 months). Parents in the high cash gift group (n=400 in the study sample) are receiving a cash gift of $333 per month ($4,000 per year), while parents in the low cash gift group (n=600) are receiving a nominal monthly gift payment of $20 ($240 per year), also for 76 months. In order to measure the impacts of the unconditional cash gift income on children's cognitive and behavioral development, we are assessing high and low cash gift group differences at ages 4, 6, and 8 (and, for a subset of measures, we capture interim development at ages 1, 2, and 3) in measures of cognitive, language, memory, self-regulation, and socio-emotional development. In order to understand the processes by which child impacts emerge, we are measuring a host of family process measures summarized in our pre-registration chart. Our data collection points are referred to as: "baseline", "age 1", "age 2," "age 3", "age 4", "age 6", and "age 8". Additional information on the project, survey design, sample, variables, and COVID-19 pandemic adjustments are available from: The User Guides for Baseline, Age 1, Age 2, and Age 3 which are included under the "Data and Documentation" tab The project's website: babysfirstyears.com The researchers request that all peer-reviewed papers using BFY Data: be submitted to PubMed https://publicaccess.nih.gov immediately upon acceptance for publication include the following citation to the data in their bibliography: Citation Magnuson, Katherine A., Noble, Kimberly, Duncan, Greg J., Fox, Nathan A., Gennetian, Lisa A., Yoshikawa, Hirokazu, and Halpern-Meekin, Sarah. Baby's First Years (BFY), New York City, New Orleans, Omaha, and Twin Cities, 2018-2022. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2024-01-15. https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37871.v5 and include the following in their acknowledgements: Acknowledgement This research uses data from the Baby's First Years study. Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HD087384 and 2R01HD087384. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. This research was additionally supported by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Administration for Children and Families, Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation; National Institute of Mental Health; Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research-Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health; Andrew and Julie Klingenstein Family Fund; Annie E. Casey Foundation; Arnold Ventures; Arrow Impact; BCBS of Louisiana Foundation; Bezos Family Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Bill Hammack and Janice Parmelee, Brady Education Fund; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (Silicon Valley Community Foundation); Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies; Child Welfare Fund; Esther A. and Joseph Klingenstein Fund; Ford Foundation; Greater New Orleans Foundation; Heising-Simons Foundation; Holland Foundation; Jacobs Foundation; JPB Foundation; J-PAL North America; Lozier Foundation; New York City Mayor's Office for Economic Op

《婴儿首年研究》的总体目标是评估家庭收入在影响儿童早期认知、社会情感及大脑发育中所扮演的因果角色。近年来，发育神经科学领域的进展表明，人生早期的经历对发育中的大脑具有深远且持久的影响。家庭经济资源塑造了许多这些经历的本质，然而，它们对儿童发展的影响程度尚属未知。婴儿首年项目是首个随机对照试验，旨在评估无条件现金赠礼对低收入美国家庭中婴儿及幼儿的认知、社会情感和大脑发育的因果影响。具体而言，1,000名来自美国四个不同社区的、收入低于联邦贫困线的婴儿的母亲，将通过借记卡接收每月的现金赠礼。起初，母亲们被告知这些赠礼将持续其孩子生命的前40个月，但我们已获得资金支持，将支付延长至额外三年（即总计76个月）。高现金赠礼组（研究样本中为400名父母）每月将收到333美元的现金赠礼（每年4,000美元），而低现金赠礼组（600名父母）每月将收到象征性的20美元赠礼（每年240美元），同样持续76个月。为了衡量无条件现金赠礼收入对儿童认知和行为发展的影响，我们将在儿童4岁、6岁和8岁时（对于部分测量指标，我们还将捕捉1岁、2岁和3岁的中间发展情况）评估高、低现金赠礼组在认知、语言、记忆、自我调节和社会情感发展方面的差异。为了理解儿童影响出现的机制，我们将测量一系列家庭过程指标，这些指标汇总于我们的预注册图表中。我们的数据收集点被称为：“基线”、“1岁”、“2岁”、“3岁”、“4岁”、“6岁”和“8岁”。有关项目、调查设计、样本、变量和COVID-19大流行期间的调整的更多信息，可通过以下途径获取：基线、1岁、2岁和3岁的用户指南，这些指南包含在“数据和文档”标签下；项目网站：babysfirstyears.com。研究人员要求所有使用BFY数据的同行评审论文：在发表接受后立即提交至PubMed https://publicaccess.nih.gov，并在其参考文献中包含以下关于数据的引用：引用 Magnuson, Katherine A.，Noble, Kimberly，Duncan, Greg J.，Fox, Nathan A.，Gennetian, Lisa A.，Yoshikawa, Hirokazu，和Halpern-Meekin, Sarah. 婴儿首年（BFY），纽约市、新奥尔良、奥马哈和双城，2018-2022。跨大学政治和社会研究联合会[分发者]，2024-01-15。https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37871.v5，并在致谢中包含以下内容：致谢本研究使用婴儿首年研究的数据。本出版物中报告的研究得到美国国家卫生研究院Eunice Kennedy Shriver国家儿童健康和人类发展研究所的资助，资助编号R01HD087384和2R01HD087384。内容仅代表作者的观点，并不代表美国国家卫生研究院的官方立场。本研究还得到美国卫生与公众服务部儿童和家庭管理局、计划、研究和评估办公室；国家精神健康研究所；国家卫生研究院行为和社会科学研究办公室-局长办公室；安德鲁和朱莉·克林根斯坦家庭基金会；安妮·E·凯西基金会；阿诺德投资；箭头影响；路易斯安那州蓝十字蓝盾基金会；贝索斯家族基金会，比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会；比尔·汉马克和简·帕尔米利，布拉迪教育基金；查尔斯和林恩·舒斯特曼家族慈善基金会；儿童福利基金；伊莎贝尔·A·和约瑟夫·克林根斯坦基金；福特基金会；新奥尔良大都会基金会；海辛-西蒙斯基金会；霍兰基金会；雅各布斯基金会；JPB基金会；J-PAL北美；洛齐尔基金会；纽约市经济机会市长办公室等机构的额外支持。