Dataset Information

Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Late-Adulthood Mental Health: Results From the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

ABSTRACT: Objectives:A growing literature acknowledges the association between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and health in late adulthood (i.e., 50+). Less, however, is known about the association with mental health outcomes, such as depression. We use the Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to analyze overall and gender-specific associations between childhood SES and late-adulthood depression. Methods:Using life history and contemporaneous data from 21,989 SHARE respondents in combination with principal component analysis we construct indices of childhood SES. We measure late-adulthood depression using the EURO-D scale. Contemporaneous SES is operationalized as the logarithm of household equivalized income. We estimate associations using linear regression models. Results:We document a positive association between childhood SES and the late-adulthood EURO-D score. The association persists even when allowing for contemporaneous SES. Zooming in on gender-specific associations reveals that the association for mental health is particularly pronounced for women. Discussion:Our findings reveal the long-term association between childhood socioeconomic conditions and depression later in life, which persists even after taking into account current socioeconomic conditions and are stronger for women than for men. These results imply that boosting childhood socioeconomic conditions can potentially have effects lasting well beyond the childhood phase.

SUBMITTER: Angelini V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6941210 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Late-Adulthood Mental Health: Results From the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

Angelini Viola V Howdon Daniel D H DDH Mierau Jochen O JO

The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences 20190101 1

<h4>Objectives</h4>A growing literature acknowledges the association between childhood socioeconomic status (SES) and health in late adulthood (i.e., 50+). Less, however, is known about the association with mental health outcomes, such as depression. We use the Survey on Health, Ageing, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE) to analyze overall and gender-specific associations between childhood SES and late-adulthood depression.<h4>Methods</h4>Using life history and contemporaneous data from 21,989 SHA ...[more]

PMID: 29566242

Similar Datasets

Project description:OBJECTIVES:We aimed to study the association of childhood urbanicity with depressive symptoms in late adulthood. DESIGN, SETTING AND PARTICIPANTS:We used linear and logistic regressions to analyse data drawn from 20 400 respondents from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe, a panel dataset incorporating a representative sample of the 50+ population in 13 European countries. OUTCOMES AND ANALYSIS:Childhood urbanicity was determined using self-reports of the respondents' circumstances at age 10, and late-adulthood depression using the EURO-D scale. We conditioned on circumstances early in life as well as later in life, most importantly late-adulthood urbanicity. We estimated the associations using linear regression models and limited dependent variable models. RESULTS:A pooled regression of both men and women suggested that childhood urbanicity is associated non-monotonically with depression in late adulthood and is particularly apparent for those spending their childhoods in suburban settings. We found that individuals who spend the longest time in their childhood in a suburban home exhibit an average increase in probability of 3.4 (CI 1.1 to 5.7) percentage points in reporting four or more depressive symptoms. The association was robust to the inclusion of a host of household characteristics associated with childhood urbanicity and was independent of current urbanicity and current income. When broken down by gender, we found some evidence of associations between depressive outcomes and urban living for men, and stronger evidence of such associations with urban and suburban living for women who exhibit an increase of 5.6 (CI 2.2 to 9.0) percentage points in reporting four or more depressive symptoms. CONCLUSIONS:Our analysis reveals a relationship between childhood urbanicity and depression in late adulthood. The evidence presented on the nature of this relationship is not straightforward but is broadly suggestive of a link, differing by gender, between greater urbanicity and higher levels of depressive symptoms. The life-long nature of this association may potentially inform policy agendas aimed at improving urban and suburban living conditions.

Project description:BackgroundCardiovascular health shows significant socioeconomic inequalities, however there is little understanding of the role of early adulthood in generation of these inequalities. We assessed the contribution of socioeconomic trajectories during early adulthood (16-24 years) to cardiovascular health in mid-adulthood (46 years).MethodsParticipants from the 1970 British Cohort Study with socioeconomic data available in early adulthood were included (n=12 423). Longitudinal latent class analysis identified socioeconomic trajectories, based on patterns of economic activity throughout early adulthood. Cardiometabolic risk factors (46 years) were regressed on socioeconomic trajectory class (16-24 years), testing mediation by adult socioeconomic position (46 years). Models were stratified by sex and adjusted for childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) and adolescent health.ResultsSix early adulthood socioeconomic trajectories were identified: (1) Continued Education (20.2%), (2) Managerial Employment (16.0%), (3) Skilled Non-manual Employment (20.9%), (4) Skilled Manual Employment (18.9%), (5) Partly Skilled Employment (15.8%) and (6) Economically Inactive (8.1%). The 'Continued Education' trajectory class showed the best cardiovascular health at age 46 years, with the lowest levels of cardiometabolic risk factors. For example, systolic blood pressure was 128.9 mm Hg (95% CI 127.8 to 130.0) among men in the 'Continued Education' class, compared with 131.3 mm Hg (95% CI 130.4 to 132.2) among men in the 'Skilled Manual' class. Patterns across classes 2-6 differed by risk factor and sex. The observed associations were largely not mediated by SEP at age 46 years.ConclusionFindings suggest an independent contribution of early adulthood socioeconomic trajectories to development of later life cardiovascular inequalities. Further work is needed to understand mediators of this relationship and potential for interventions to mitigate these pathways.

Dataset Information

Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Late-Adulthood Mental Health: Results From the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

Publications

Childhood Socioeconomic Status and Late-Adulthood Mental Health: Results From the Survey on Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets