Professor Jere R. Behrman Leads Grand Challenges Canada Grant Project at Penn

Professor Behrman is the lead researcher for an 18-month grant to the University from Grand Challenges Canada, for “Team 1000+ Saving Brains: Economic Impacts of Poverty-Related Risk Factors during the First 1000 Days for Cognitive Development and Human Capital.” The project will be centered at the Penn Population Studies Center, where Behrman (pictured at right) is a research associate, but is a part of a consortium with the University of Bristol (PI: Sonia Bhalotra) and The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy (CDDEP)/Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) (PI: Ramanan Laxminarayan) that involves over 50 investigators in 17 countries.

Funded by the Government of Canada, Grand Challenges Canada funds innovators in low- and middle-income countries and Canada. The organization works to catalyze scale, sustainability, and impact, focusing on results that save and improve lives globally. Its Saving Brains program focuses on interventions that nurture and protect brain development in the first 1,000 days of life.

For further details, see Penn News or the University of Pennsylvania Almanac. For more information on Professor Behrman's work, see page 7 of the Spring/Summer 2013 issue of Penn Arts and Sciences Magazine.

Jere Behrman