On this episode I am joined by Dr. Orla Doyle. Orla is Associate Professor at the UCD School of Economics and a Research Fellow at the Geary Institute at UCD. Orla specialises in the economics of human development, particularly on evaluating the effectiveness of early childhood interventions.

Orla has led an exciting research project entitled 'Preparing for life', which evaluates the effectiveness of early childhood intervention programmes. We discuss this programme and Orla offers a few tips for any parents out there, arising from her work.

We discuss the impact that the recession has had on health and well-being, through the lens of a study on maternal health. While there are negative effects, as one would expect, we find some surprising positive effects. There are also a few lessons to be learned when it comes to the current COVID19 crisis and Orla takes us through those.

Increasing inequality is something we think about a lot nowadays, even before covid19 but increasing educational inequality was something that was not on my radar. Orla also has done some important writing in relation to this and takes us through some issues we need to plan for when fighting covid19.

Finally, to borrow the famous Monty Python phrase, we wrap up with something completely different when Orla takes us through her study of the impact terrorism may have on well being.

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