A detailed analysis of the lives of nearly a thousand people from birth to age 38 shows that a small portion of the population accounts for the lion’s share of social costs such as crime, welfare dependence and health-care needs as adults.
Just one-fifth of the study population accounted for 81 percent of criminal convictions and 77 percent of fatherless childrearing. This fifth of the group also consumed three-quarters of drug prescriptions, two-thirds of welfare benefits and more than half of the hospital nights and cigarettes smoked.
The researchers found they could have predicted which adults were likely to incur such costs as early as age 3 based on assessments of “brain health,” giving them hope that early interventions could avoid some of these social costs.
[For more of this story go to https://today.duke.edu/2016/12...be-spotted-preschool]
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