Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to College

Journal of Public Health Policy,  2002  by O'Campo, Patricia

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Sheldon Danziger and Jane Waldfocal, editors. Securing the Future: Investing in Children from Birth to College. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2000. xv + 330 pp. $39.95 cloth.

Securing the Future tackles the daunting task of identifying the most effective childhood and adult interventions available to ensure that young adults in the US have the knowledge, skills, and capacities to be productive individuals. Throughout the ten chapters, written by prominent scholars, evaluation data on childhood and adult interventions are comprehensively reviewed, and their policy implications with regard to improving outcomes such as high school graduation rates, college attendance rates, school achievement, minimization of childhood behavior problems and more are discussed. This book is the outcome of a series of invited conferences sponsored by the Ford and Russell Sage foundations in which invited scientists tackled critical topics on community asset development to alleviate poverty and injustice. Securing the Future concentrates on themes of "human asset development" to alleviate poverty and injustice. In doing so, it takes a life-course approach in evaluating interventions from the preschool period to young adulthood designed to promote the development of children into productive adults.

There are a number of strengths to this volume. First, the coverage of interventions across childhood is comprehensive. Interventions range from promoting prenatal maternal health to promote positive pregnancy outcomes, and early interventions to promote 'brain development' from ages 0-3, to job training for adults. Although some chapters are weaker than others, most are very strong when it comes to stating hypotheses, presenting data to support hypotheses, and discussing the findings of their work within the larger context of building assets in children to alleviate poverty and ensure good childhood academic achievement and adult employment.

Some weaknesses come from a reliance on outdated data (e.g., brain development), yet this is rare. The book is also organized in a convenient fashion, according to life course periods. So there are sections on early childhood, school-age children, and transitions from school to young adulthood. Thus, those interested in a specific time period might consult just the section of the book devoted to that developmental period.

One major strength of the book is the presentation of data to support the conclusions on effective interventions. The chapters, with little exception, present the latest information on interventions designed to promote positive cognitive and social child development for each developmental period. When possible, the interventions presented are very strong. The discussion of the interventions, their effectiveness, and finally their policy implications are excellent. The book can easily serve as a reference and overview of what is currently known about interventions designed to promote child well-being and successful transition to adulthood.

The discussion of policy is supported by the empirical information presented in the chapters and, furthermore, the policy conclusions are presented in such a way that authors also refer to information presented in other chapters in the book. This positively contributes to the overall cohesiveness across the chapters in the book, even when the chapters address different developmental time periods as well as intervention data. An interesting twist is that not all authors come to the same conclusion about similar topics. And the lack of consensus on selected issues (e.g., on the benefits of early childhood intervention and diminished impact of later intervention), are handled quite adeptly by the authors of the chapters. In fact, the differences add depth to the discussion of the policy recommendations of the authors and editors.

Now for some of the weaknesses of the book which are not insignificant. Although one of the strengths of the book is the use of existing data on programs and interventions to support policy recommendations, this may contribute to one of its biggest weaknesses. The book fails to devote appropriate attention to structural issues that may contribute to unsuccessful transition from childhood to adulthood, such as economic trends, labor market factors, unemployment patterns, institutional discrimination, and the size of the welfare state, to name a few. The evidence that these factors impact childhood and adult health and well-being abound. Yet, most data presented focus on proximal determinants of adverse outcomes. Hence, no data nor discussion focus on any of the structural factors aforementioned. To be fair, the introduction identifies itself with a 'human captial' perspective and as such, perhaps appropriately, focuses on demographic and individual determinants of successful childhood and adult outcomes. Yet, the policy implications of an exclusively human capital perspective is that the burden of "alleviating poverty and injustice" falls squarely on the shoulders of the individual. The few chapters that do discuss structural factors (e.g., the chapter on "resourceful families and communities" or "neighborhood context"), do not support their claims with strong data. Perhaps one reason for the lack of discussion is the likely case that the data available to measure the contribution of structural factors on childhood and adult outcomes are harder to come by. Yet, this book presents an important opportunity to identify gaps in the research arena and, given its policy focus, might even speculate about the important structural factors that should receive greater attention if future generations are to reduce poverty and injustice. Given the caliber of the authors of this volume, their input into this important piece of the puzzle would have substantially improved their already significant contributions.