Some of the most innovative, evidence influenced, best evaluated prevention programs are taking place in the Global South. The CHASE project in Tanzania, for example, reviewed here yesterday, is a case in point [see: Making it work is doing it together].

So, at a more general level, what might those working to improve children’s well-being in the South have to teach those doing the same in the North?

For a start, we can learn a lot from the relationship between environments and well-being. This, too, is difficult to tease apart in the North. As Tom Achenbach reminds us, [see North or South it's the same – only different] economic disadvantage consistently correlates with poor mental health, but there is not very much difference between the incidence of psychological disorders in either hemisphere.

There is concomitant interest in the impact of economic change. Jane Costello and Adrian Angold’s experiment on sudden improvement in income levels in highly deprived communities in the Great Smoky Mountains of the eastern United States has much to say about the potential benefits.

So how about the impact of rapid economic development in China and India? The effects can be hypothesized positively and negatively. Less