This proposal seeks support for a research group led by James Heckman of the Geary Institute at University College Dublin to produce an integrated developmental approach to health that studies the origins and the evolution of health inequalities over the lifecourse and across generations, and the role played by cognition, personality, genes, and environments. Major experimental and nonexperimental international datasets will be analyzed. A practical guide to implementing related policy will be produced. We will build a science of human development that draws on, extends, and unites research on the biology and epidemiology of health disparities with medical economics and the economics of skill formation. The goal is to develop an integrated framework to jointly model the economic, social and biological mechanisms that produce the evolution and the intergenerational transmission of health and of the capabilities that foster health. The following tasks will be undertaken: (1) We will quantify the importance of early-life conditions in explaining the existence of health disparities across the lifecourse. (2) We will understand how health inequalities are transmitted across generations. (3) We will assess the health benefits from early childhood interventions. (4) We will examine the role of genes and environments in the aetiology and evolution of disease. (5) We will analyze how health inequalities emerge and evolve across the lifecourse. (6) We will give biological foundations to both our models and the health measures we will use. The proposed research will investigate causal channels for promoting health. It will compare the relative effectiveness of interventions at various stages of the life cycle and the benefits and costs of later remediation if early adversity is not adequately eliminated. It will guide the design of current and prospective experimental and longitudinal studies and policy formulation, and will train young scholars in frontier methods of research