Comparing China REACH and the Jamaica Home Visiting Program

Area of Science:

• Child Development
• Global Health
• Education Policy

Background:

• Delayed child skill development is prevalent in low- and middle-income countries.
• There is a need for effective, low-cost early childhood development strategies.
• The Jamaica Reach Up and Learn program is a successful home-visiting intervention.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effectiveness of the China REACH program, a replication of the Jamaica Reach Up and Learn intervention.
• To compare child skill growth profiles between the China REACH and Jamaica interventions.
• To assess the scalability and cost-effectiveness of the intervention in diverse settings.

Main Methods:

• Utilized a modified Rasch model to anchor assessment scores across different programs.
• Compared child skill growth curves between the China REACH and Jamaica interventions.
• Analyzed treatment effect sizes and skill growth patterns for treatment and control groups.

Main Results:

• Language skill growth curves were comparable across both the China REACH and Jamaica interventions.
• No statistically significant differences were found in skill growth curves between the two programs.
• The China REACH intervention demonstrated significant improvements in multiple child skills.

Conclusions:

• The Jamaican curriculum can be effectively scaled to larger populations, as shown by the China REACH program.
• Intervention effect sizes and skill growth are comparable across different cultural settings and scales.
• Early childhood interventions are a worthwhile investment, with annual costs around $500 per child.