IntroductionEarly-life effects on socio-economic performance and mortality in later life: A full life-course approach using contemporary and historical sources
Section snippets
Background
The significance of conditions in early childhood for health in later life has been long known. Barker (1994: 155) cites Mary McCraicen, secretary of the ladies committee of the Belfast Poorhouse, who in the 1830s wrote about the importance of proper nourishment and treatment during infancy for future life. Hellstenius (1871), in an analysis of the relationship between harvests during the foetal stage and health of recruits to the Swedish army, cites a former secretary of the state, Hans Järta,
Age, cohort and period factors
Demographers often wish to distinguish between period and cohort factors in addition to age. Early-life factors that have long lasting effects on health are called cohort factors while factors affecting all (or almost all) age groups at the same time are called period factors. The issue at hand is their relative importance. Finch and Crimmins (2004) examined age-specific mortality rates for various countries and argued that cohort factors were important for the great mortality decline. A
Explanatory factors, pathways and mechanisms
Contemporary studies can include social and economic information such as parental socio-economic status at birth, and own socio-economic status at certain ages in adulthood, education, and income. Environmental factors, such as prevalence of infectious diseases or Gross Domestic Product per capita, are sometimes also used. Genetically informed measures, such as longevity of parents or grandparents have, however, only rarely been included (see Bengtsson & Mineau, 2008).
Models often try to
The Mölle meeting and organisation of the special issue
To explore this topic we organized an international meeting in June 2006 in Mölle, Sweden. The meeting, jointly organized by the Research Group in Economic Demography at Lund University (now the Centre for Economic Demography) and the International Union for the Scientific Study of Populations Committee on Historical Demography, brought together a multi-disciplinary group of investigators with interests in historical demography and epidemiology. For this Special Issue we have chosen eleven
Conclusions
The papers in this Special Issue illustrate the contribution of both prospective studies and retrospective studies to the growing body of work on the health effects of early-life conditions. Contemporary prospective studies are valuable because they include a large amount of detailed, individual-level information that is necessary to study causal pathways for well-defined cohorts, an advantage that will only increase as subjects approach their later years. These studies may allow more direct
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The association between male height and lifespan in rural Spain, birth cohorts 1835-1939
2021, Economics and Human BiologyCitation Excerpt :The shortest were most likely to die at a younger age. These results are consistent with the literature on early life conditions in the long term (Smith et al., 2009; Bengtsson and Mineau, 2009; Marco-Gracia, 2021). Individuals with poor conditions during their childhood (approached through the proxy of height), were more likely to develop health problems that manifested themselves throughout adulthood, sometimes with fatal consequences.
Were there long-term economic effects of exposure to polio vaccination? An analysis of migrants to Sweden 1946–2003
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2017, American Journal of Preventive MedicineCitation Excerpt :Previous research suggests that certain developmental time periods, particularly the transition from adolescence into early adulthood, may represent a “sensitive period” for health. As a developmental turning point, adolescence marks a transition where the environment becomes increasingly important for health as young people have more control over the environment and their behavioral choices.6,11 A better understanding of the behavioral and psychosocial risk factors in adolescence and young adulthood linked to cancer development later in life would facilitate the development of early interventions to prevent cancer onset.
The “Hispanic mortality paradox” revisited: Meta-analysis and meta-regression of life-course differentials in Latin American and Caribbean immigrants' mortality
2017, Social Science and MedicineCitation Excerpt :This fact may put them on a disadvantageous life-course trajectory compared with migrants who grew up in more affluent countries, such as Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay (Klinthall and Lindstrom, 2011). According to this logic, greater exposure to stress and disease load, combined with worse healthcare and preventive care during the first years of life, may increase the risk of morbidity and mortality in later life (Bengtsson and Brostrom, 2009; Bengtsson and Lindstrom, 2000; Bengtsson and Mineau, 2009). Geographical distance between the country of origin and the country of destination may also be an important mediating factor.
Early life conditions and long-term sickness absence during adulthood - A longitudinal study of 9000 siblings in Sweden
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