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Around the beginning of 1997, RAND was approached by the I Am Your Child Early Childhood Public Engagement Campaign to conduct an independent, objective review of the scientific evidence available on early childhood interventions.

Early childhood interventions were defined as attempts by government agencies or other organizations to improve child health and development, educational attainment, and economic well-being. The aim was to quantify the benefits of these programs to children, their parents, and society at large. Funding for the project was secured from The California wellness foundation.RAND's Criminal Justice Program and Labor and Population Program established an interdisciplinary research team including two economists, a criminologist, two mathematical modelers, and a developmental pediatrician. As the project evolved, it became convenient to separate the benefits being examined into two large categories:benefits to the children and parents participating in the programs, and benefits by way of eventual savings to the government(and therefore society in general) from reduced levels of social service expenditures on participants following the end of the programs. For ease of reference, the first class is typically called benefits in this report and the second class, savings. Savings are compared with program costs.This study was one of Peter Rydell's last projects at RAND. Peter,who was largely responsible for Chapter Three, died in October 1997. Peter's clear, rigorous approach to the analysis of societal costs,benefits, and savings was a hallmark of RAND research in multiple areas of public policy concern over a period of almost 30 years. His insight, optimism, and generosity have been an inspiration to us all.