How Early Childhood Experiences Affect Lifelong Health and Learning

How is ongoing, severe stress and adversity in early childhood connected to chronic disease in adults? And, what can we do about it?

In this animated video, narrated by the Center’s Founding Director Jack P. Shonkoff, MD, learn what the latest science tells us about how early experiences affect not only early learning and school readiness, but also lifelong health. Understand the effects of adversities such as poverty, discrimination, systemic racism, exposure to violence, and child maltreatment, abuse, and neglect on the developing brain and many other systems in the body.

Challenge yourself to think about how we can use policies and resources to address the sources of these problems. And, consider how integrating pediatric primary care with every aspect of the early childhood ecosystem may be an important part of the solution.