Healthy Start

With Healthy Start, our goal is improving access to and quality of early childhood care and education supports, particularly for vulnerable young children and their caregivers. These supports include quality care, family home visiting and early health and developmental screenings.

The strong connection between health and quality early childhood care and education is well established. Research shows us that what happens in the first five years of life sets the stage for lifelong health and that for every $1 invested in early childhood, the public return is as much as $16.

Ninety percent of brain development happens before age 5, making it the greatest opportunity to build future health. Children who have access to quality early childhood care and education go on to:

• Achieve higher levels of education
• Have increased employment and income in adulthood
• Have decreased crime and incarceration rates
• Have lower BMIs and rates of obesity

These outcomes are all indicators of lifelong health. This strong connection to health is why the Blue Cross Foundation has been committed to increasing access to early childhood care and education for nearly 20 years. 

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