Role of NYC's Universal Pre-K Expansion on the Health and Education of Children

Improving upstream components of health is critical for assuring improvement in longer term health and wellbeing. This is particularly relevant for pre-kindergarten education. While evidence exists on smaller scale programs that are not universal in nature, we have a paucity of information on the role of true universal expansions, at the level of a large city, on health or education outcomes for children at the population level. In 2014, New York City (NYC) launched a universal pre-kindergarten (UPK) expansion, more than tripling the number of slots available in 2 years. We will examine the role that his program had in both health and education outcomes for children in NYC through the school years, through 12th grade. UPK could influence a wide variety of health (e.g., mental health, asthma, vision/hearing, obesity) and education (e.g., test scores, attendance, retention) outcomes. The research leverages the NYC Student Population Health Registry (SPHR), a uniquely inclusive, longitudinal database of all NYC public school students, created jointly by the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene and NYC Department of Education to examine these and other outcomes. SPHR links multiple data sources at the child-level, allowing us to examine the influence of UPK on myriad outcomes. The specific aims are: Aim 1: Determine the influence of NYC’s citywide UPK expansion on child health outcomes. H1: Relative to children who entered public school before UPK expansion, children who entered school after UPK expansion will have improved health outcomes. Aim 2: Determine the influence of NYC’s citywide UPK expansion on child education outcomes. H2: Relative to children who entered public school before UPK expansion, children who entered school after UPK expansion will have improved education outcomes. Aim 3: Determine the influence of NYC’s citywide UPK expansion on health and education for all children. H3: Different groups of children will see differential impacts from UPK on health and education outcomes.