These reviews described long-term cost-benefit analyses of three early childhood interventions - the Abecedarian Program, Perry High/Scope and the Chicago Child-Parent Centers. All were undertaken in the United States and targeted mostly underprivileged black communities. Given this context, it is argued that results of the three studies are not easily transferable to modern contexts in countries such as England. The results indicated should therefore all be read with the caveat of ‘for the specific population in these studies’. This topic is included in the EPPI-Centre knowledge library. The Knowledge Pages facility enables users to search for the key messages within specific subject areas to which EPPI-Centre reviews have contributed.