The aim of this project was to improve our understanding of health as an asset in the production of social and economic outcomes. Greater knowledge in this area will strengthen the arguments for public policy that promotes good population health as a means to improving socio-economic life outcomes amongst the population. At a time when there are numerous crises in population health – poor nutrition linked to increasing poverty, obesity, poor air-quality – this ambitious project helps to better understand and quantify the causal impact of health on later social and economic outcomes throughout the life course.

To achieve this, the project uses data from UK Biobank and two cohort studies – the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children and Early Prediction of Adolescent Depression – both of which have repeated measures of multiple mental and physical health measures and economic and social outcomes of parents and children. By applying causal inference methods it examines the causal links between health and social and economic outcome and assesses whether the impact of health changes across the life course, identifying periods of the life course where policy changes are likely to have the greatest effects. Given the importance of intergenerational transmission of health and other socio-economic factors, the project considers whether parental health causally affects the social and economic outcomes of children. Synthesising the evidence generated with findings from other studies funded in this Health Foundation programme and with economic modelling, the project demonstrates the collective economic returns to maximising population health. This in turn will motivate cross-government action to maximise health.