Poverty as a Childhood Disease

Clarke Forum event explores the effects of poverty on child development

Perri Klass

Dickinson will host a discussion on the effects of poverty on child development by Perri Klass, New York University (NYU) professor and pediatrician. The lecture, “Poverty as a Childhood Disease,” will be held Thursday, Feb. 25, at 7 p.m. in the Stern Center Great Room.

The first few years of a child’s life are crucial to future development. Klass points out a healthy diet, reliable sleep schedule and stable environment all contribute to a child’s brain growth. A child’s exposure to books and puzzles also help with early educational success. Recently, it has become a growing concern that adults living in poverty cannot provide the same resources to their children as economically and socially stable parents. Children are now the poorest demographic, with almost 25 percent of children under the age of five living below the federal poverty line. The Pediatric Academic Societies now encourage pediatricians to seek resources, particularly economic ones, to make sure the next generation of children has the chance to avoid the disease of poverty.

Klass is professor of journalism and pediatrics at NYU as well as the director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at NYU. She received her degree in medicine from Harvard Medical School and completed her residency in pediatrics at Children’s Hospital, Boston. She has written extensively about medicine, children and literacy. Some of her works include Every Mother is a Daughter: the Neverending Quest for Success, Inner Peace, and a Really Clean Kitchen, and Quirky Kids: Understanding and Helping Your Child Who Doesn’t Fit In. Klass is also the national medical director of Reach Out and Read, a national program that incorporates books and literacy promotion into pediatric primary care visits and encourages parent-child interaction through reading aloud.

This event will kick off a children’s book drive, benefiting a variety of local Carlisle organizations. Bins for book donations will be available at the Clarke Forum building, the Waidner-Spahr Library and the Whistlestop Bookshop. The drive will run through Feb. 28. Donations will be accepted at the lecture.

This event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Churchill Fund, the departments of economics and educational studies and the health studies program. It also is a Clarke Forum student project manager-initiated program and part of the Clarke Forum’s Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty series.

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Published February 24, 2016