Two Scalable Interventions to Promote Health and Mental Development in Early Childhood: A Randomized Controlled Trial in Rural India
该研究在印度农村对2岁以下儿童测试了两种简单易推广的干预措施：家庭铁强化装置和对话式阅读培训，发现两者结合能改善非贫血儿童的语言能力，且对话式阅读对未干预儿童有正向溢出效应。
Early-childhood interventions are important for poverty reduction but difficult to target. We study two interventions in rural India for children below age 2 that are simple and easy to scale: a durable device for iron fortification at home and caregiver training in dialogic reading. Outcomes were measured blinded. When delivered together, the interventions improved receptive language skills of children who were not anemic at baseline, suggesting that health endowment complements parental investments in the production of human capital. The dialogic reading intervention further shows positive spillovers on untreated children. Overall, shorter-lived interventions are potentially effective in healthier populations.