Life-course influences on health and mortality

We analysed the extent to which associations between parenthood histories and later life health are mediated by wealth, health-related behaviours, social support and strain. A sample of men and women aged 50+ who participated in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing waves 1-3 was used (n = 6,207). Parenthood history included number of natural children, having adopted or step children and timing of first and last birth. Mediators were wealth, social support and strain, smoking and physical activity. Health outcomes were allostatic load and limiting long-term illness. The path models were adjusted for age, education, marital history, childhood health and intergenerational contacts. The association between a higher number of children and health was mediated by wealth in men and women, and by smoking and social strain in women. The association between having an adopted or step child and health was mediated through wealth. In addition to mediation through wealth, physical activity and smoking, mothers had a direct association between early childbirth and allostatic load. Among fathers, the direct paths from early and late childbirth to health remained, although some of the effects were mediated through wealth and physical activity.

Rates of morbidity and mortality in the UK are higher for non-white ethnic minority groups compared with the white majority population. Ethnic health inequalities have been partly attributed to lower socioeconomic resources and experienced racism. However, there is still substantial debate on the causal mechanisms behind health inequalities, and it is not clear when and how the ethnic patterning of chronic disease risk emerges during the early life course, and how this varies across ethnic groups.
There are important differences in the processes that have led to the ethnic makeup of the populations in the UK, including motivations for and patterns of migration, and both historical and contemporary ethnic relations. Hypothesised causal factors of ethnic health inequalities may thus differ substantially across ethnic groups, leading to possible variations in the patterning of ethnic health inequalities.
This study will analyse a birth cohort with an oversample of ethnic minority children in the UK to examine and compare inequalities in child health and development across ethnic groups, exploring cognitive development and socioemotional behaviours. Results will make a unique contribution to research on ethnic inequalities in child development and health, allowing a better understanding of the determinants of health inequalities

The paper uses CLHLS data from 1998 to 2005, employing Cox hazard regression model to analyze the impact of religious attendance on the mortality risk of the oldest old, and to examines the roles of physical/mental health, healthy behaviors and socioeconomic supports in this relationship, in order to test four kinds of theoretical models in the western literature. The results show that religious attendance is correlated with mortality risk. However, the effects of other potential explanatory variables can somehow reduce the association. These findings suggest that religious attendance may represent a proxy for physical health, especially in the oldest old.

Cognitive impairment and dementia are major health problems confronting older persons. Blacks are especially hard hit by cognitive impairment and dementia in the U.S. It is estimated that among those aged 71 years and older Blacks were approximately two times more likely to have dementia than Whites. Despite developments in understanding the risk factors associated with cognitive impairment and dementia in recent years, very few population-level studies have investigated the origins and mechanisms through which the racial gap in cognitive impairment is produced. In this study, using data from 7 waves of the Health and Retirement Study (1998-2010), we analyzed how racial differences in cognitive impairment are tied to the racial stratification of childhood resources and health, adult socioeconomic status, health, and health behaviors among 9044 non-Hispanic Whites and Blacks aged 65 and older in 1998. Our preliminary results showed that older Blacks were about three times more likely to suffer from cognitive impairment than Whites in 1998, and childhood conditions including childhood health, parental education, and father's occupation as well as adult socioeconomic achievement played an important role in accounting for racial disparities in cognitive impairment in later life.

There is growing evidence that maternal psychological stress during pregnancy, negatively affects a wide variety of offspring outcomes. Animal studies suggest that negative influences of maternal stress during pregnancy persist across multiple generations, but there is little direct evidence confirming that it is present among human populations. This study draws evidence on the intergenerational influences of maternal stress from the Kwangju uprising (May 18-27), arguably the bloodiest incidence that has occurred in South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953. The micro files of the 2000 and 2002 Vital Statistics of South Korea are utilized for the study. The results of difference-in-difference estimations suggest that in-utero exposure to the Kwangju uprising significantly diminished the offspring birth weight and length of gestation. The impact of exposure to maternal stress differs by stage of pregnancy when the shock is received. Exposure to stress during the second trimester of pregnancy exerted the strongest negative effect on grandchildren’s birth weights. As for the length of gestation, the second and third trimesters were equally critical.

In this research, the researcher took 34 suicide cases in Jingshan County, Hubei Province, China as examples and started from a specific family life angle, to establish the relationship between suicide and family life and took advantage of the "anomie" theory-- "standard absent" and "conflicts between cultural goals and social means" --in sociology to explain how current transformation in China’s whole society has been giving rise to changes in family life, and then leading to the rural elderly suicide.

In this study we incorporate a life course perspective into immigrants’ health assimilation. We examine whether age at migration predicts current smoking and binge drinking and moderates the effect of length of residence on these two health behaviors using a nationally representative sample (N=7,397). Immigrant groups include those from Latin America/Caribbean, East and South Asia/Pacific/Oceania, Sub-Saharan Africa, Europe/Central Asia, and Middle East/North Africa. Multivariate logistic regressions are estimated. Results show that age at migration matters in a gendered way across immigrant groups. Arriving at age 0-9 is directly associated with higher odds of binge drinking among adult women. Among adult men, age at migration moderates the association between length of residence and both smoking and binge drinking. Length of residence has more detrimental effects for adolescent migrants (arriving at age 10-18) on smoking, while its detrimental effects are more pronounced for childhood migrants (arriving at age 0-9) on binge drinking. We conclude that adolescence and childhood are critical life stages that are associated with different effects of length of residence when looking at smoking and binge drinking among immigrants.

Though well-established in developed settings, the form of the education-health relationship is less well known in developing settings, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA). Using three waves of the Malawi Survey of Families and Households (MLSFH), I estimate annual probabilities of entering into physical disability and death by age, sex, and educational attainment. I use these transition probabilities to estimate life and health expectancies by generating synthetic cohorts of individuals via microsimulation. Individuals in SSA experience substantial disability, but individuals with more education are less likely to transition to disability and death. Males with 4 or more years of education live on average 3 years longer than males with less than 4 years of education, with all of these additional years lived in active life. Females with more education do not live longer overall, but do live proportionately more of their lives without disabilities.