Intergenerational Pathways to Success: Two 30-Year Studies in Baltimore

In collaboration with public health scholars at Johns Hopkins University, researchers at the Center followed more than 2,500 families of low-income women over three generations as part of a thirty-year longitudinal study. The project team looked at fertility, health, employment, poverty, and social status of the first two generations, as well as cognitive, linguistic, and behavioral outcomes during childhood for the second and third generations. The data from this study continue to be relevant, providing a paradigm for researchers and policy makers who are attempting to identify the factors, processes, and strategies that enable children to break out of the disadvantageous circumstances in which they were raised to become successful, self-sustaining adults.

Funding Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation; Maternal and Child Health Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; William T. Grant Foundation; Commonwealth Fund.

Contact: Anne Martin, Dr.P.H.