Thirty-five years later: Evaluating the impacts of a child health and family planning programme in Bangladesh

This study by Tania Barham, Randall Kuhn, Jane Menken and Abudur Razzaque examined the long-term impact of the Matlab Maternal and Child Health and Family Planning Programme in Bangladesh that began in 1977. Thirty-five years after it began, the study looked at two key measures of human capital: height and cognitive functioning. The findings showed that the programme led to important and sustained effects on a person’s height through adulthood. There were important effects on cognitive functioning through late childhood that did not persist through adulthood. Future research needs to investigate if these effects on cognitive functioning through late childhood still led to gains in other aspects of these people’s lives.