Commentary on the Symposium: Biological Embedding, Life Course Development, and the Emergence of a New Science

Abstract

A new science of human development is emerging, which has the capacity to transform the way we understand the origins of health and disease; to increase the public health significance of early child development; and to call into question how and when society should act on a range of health problems. It builds on the multidisciplinary evidence that social environments and experiences during sensitive periods in brain and biological development affect health for the balance of the life course through a process called biological embedding. Despite the fact that biological embedding has established credibility in the scientific literature, the transformative power of the new science has yet to be fully realized in policy and practice. To further this transformation, this symposium offers a public health perspective on biological embedding.