Hajat, Rowhani-Rahbar, and Schleimer Conduct Retrospective Study of Association Between Early Childhood Education and Interpersonal Violence
Posted: 3/19/2026 (CSDE Research)

CSDE Affiliates Anjum Hajat (Epidemiology, CSDE Development Core Director) and Ali Rowhani-Rahbar (Epidemiology), along with first author and UW Epidemiology PhD Graduate Julia Schleimer who led this work as part of her dissertation, published a retrospective cohort study of the intergeneration association between early childhood education and interpersonal violence in Injury Epidemiology. Schleimer, Hajat, Rowhani-Rahbar and co-authors used the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 (NLSY79) and intergenerationally linked Child and Young Adult Cohort (NLSCYA). The authors linked Head Start availability in the mother’s birth county and self-reports by their children of serious fighting and assault conviction between 1988 and 2020. Maternal Head Start exposure was associated with 0.85 times the risk of serious fighting among offspring, with results driven by Black and Hispanic/Latino male offspring. No reductions in risk of serious fighting were observed among other subpopulations or for assault conviction. Results of this study indicate that high-quality early childhood education may narrow disparities in interpersonal violence across generations, offering novel evidence on population-level and primary prevention programs to promote safety and wellbeing.