An Exploration of the Dynamic Relationship between Health and Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Abstract

This paper is an empirical exploration of the dynamic relationship between health and cognitive development in a longitudinal data set compiled from two nationally representative cross-sections of children. Our results indicate that there is feedback both from health to cognitive development and from cognitive development to health, but the latter of these relationships is stronger. They also indicate that estimates of family background effects taken from the dynamic model -- which can be assumed to be less influenced by genetic factors are smaller than their cross-sectional counterparts, but some still remain statistically significant. The first finding calls attention to the existence of a continuing inter-action between health and cognitive development over the life cycle. The second finding suggests that nurture "matters" in cognitive development and health outcomes.