Baby's First Years
The first study in the United States to assess the impact of poverty reduction on family life and infant and toddlers’ cognitive, emotional, and brain development
Data and documentation
Baby’s First Years data are freely available to the research community through the Interuniversity Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR). Data from each data collection wave are released as soon as they are cleaned and documented.
BFY Baseline Data Summary (collected at birth)
Between May 2018 and June, 2019, 1,050 mothers with incomes below the poverty threshold in four metropolitan areas in the United States were recruited in 12 hospitals shortly after giving birth and completed a baseline interview. Some 1,000 of these 1,050 agreed to receive the cash gift that the study offered. The User Guide for the BFY baseline data collection was designed to inform potential data users about study procedures and baseline data collected as part of the project. The guide provides descriptions of:
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the design of the Baby’s First Years project
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how we came to administer a baseline interview to the n=1,050 mothers included in the publicly available dataset.
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how the mothers were randomly assigned to high and low monthly cash gift groups
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how we coded and otherwise processed the mothers’ responses to the instrument.
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and show that the two groups
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baseline characteristics and balance across the two cash gift groups
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noteworthy features of the data that all analysts should know about
Baseline data and documentation
BFY Age 1 Data Summary
Between July 2019 and June 2020, we attempt to contact all 1,000 mothers who participate in the study and successfully interviewed 931 of them. Data collection was timed to coincide with their children’s first birthdays. Until March 13, 2020, interviews were conducted in person, often in the mother’s home. After March 13 and because of the Covid-19 pandemic, remaining interviews were conducted by telephone. Novel features of the in-home Age-1 interviews include: EEG from the child, a hair sample from the mother, and a video recorded play task with the mother and child.
Data from the age 1 wave is available on the BFY ICPSR website.
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Age 1 administrative data and transaction tracking consent form (for participants not consenting at baseline)
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Age 1 EEG explanatory video (not yet available)
BFY AGE 2 DATA SUMMARY
Between July 2020 and June 2021, we attempted to contact all 1,000 mothers who participated in the study and successfully interviewed 924 of them. Data collection was timed to coincide with their children’s second birthdays. All interviews were conducted by telephone.
The age 2 data is currently being processed and will be available in the future.
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User Guide for the Age 2 Data Collection (not yet available)
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Age 2 administrative data consent form (for participants not consenting at baseline)
BFY AGE 3 DATA SUMMARY
Between July 2021 and June 2022, we attempted to contact all 1,000 mothers who participated in the study and successfully interviewed 921 of them. Data collection was timed to coincide with their children’s third birthdays. All interviews were conducted by telephone.
The age 3 data is currently being processed and will be available in the future.
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User Guide for the Age 3 Data Collection (not yet available)
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Age 3 data deposit with ICPSR (not yet available)
BFY qualitative study
Qualitative semi-structured interviews are conducted with 80 randomly selected mothers in two of the four study sites. There will be four rounds of interviews. The first round of interviews took place between August 2019 and September 2020; the second round of interviews took place between August 2020 and August 2021.
Qualitative interview guides
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Round 4 qualitative study interview guide (not yet available)