Advancing Life Course Intervention Research

Children born today in the US can reasonably expect to live for 100 years. Yet, surviving for a century is not the same as thriving – living a life characterized by health and wellbeing. A new collection of pathbreaking articles asks: How can we identify and eliminate the risks to thriving? How do we put in place the kind of scaffolding that supports optimal health and wellbeing?
The science of life course health development, summarized and applied in this special supplement to the journal Pediatrics, is attempting to do just that. Understanding the contexts and processes that influence health development, connecting the dots between what happens early in life and future health trajectories, and devising interventions that can optimize lifelong trajectories of health and wellbeing, especially for those facing the greatest challenges.
The collection of 17 articles, authored by 64 scientists from universities and research institutions from across the US and Australia, defines a new discipline of Life Course Intervention Research within the rapidly emerging field of Life Course Health Science. Life Course Intervention Research is focused on identifying how and when to intervene early in life to improve future health outcomes and achieve health equity.