How to Be Healthy in Old Age? Start With a Healthy Childhood, According to Article in Demography

2/26/2004

From: Mark Hayward of the Population Research Institute, 814-865-2003 or Hayward@pop.psu.edu, or Bridget K. Gorman of Rice University, 713-348-4137, Bkgorman@rice.edu

STATE COLLEGE, Pa., Feb. 26 -- Social conditions and a healthy family environment for children can lower the risk of death for men more than half a century later, according to a new study published in the February issue of the journal Demography.

Having parents who worked in professional jobs, growing up on a farm, and growing up in a two-parent family lowered significantly the risk of death for men after age 45. In large part, the association between a healthy environment in childhood and good health in old age is explained by the achievements and lifestyle behaviors of the men in their own adult careers -- those who had favorable conditions as boys were less likely as older men to smoke, drink excessively, or be obese. They were more likely than their contemporaries from poorer childhood homes to finish high school or college and work as adults in occupations that were cognitively challenging and offered autonomy. Men who had lived at age 15 with a stepfather and a mother who worked outside the home (at a time when far fewer mothers worked) had a risk of mortality at older ages almost 1.5 times as great as those who had lived with both biological parents.

Mark D. Hayward of the Population Research Institute at Pennsylvania State University and Bridget K. Gorman of Rice University and the University of Texas School of Public Health analyzed data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Older Men, a nationally representative sample of over 4,500 American men born in 1905-1921. The men were interviewed in 1966 about their family backgrounds at age 15, as well as other health-related issues, and they were tracked for 24 years after the first interview.

Hayward and Gorman show that there is no single pathway by which Childhood socioeconomic and family disadvantages affects men's mortality. "Policies that focus on children's health, economic security, and education are likely to have far reaching effects on health decades later," Hayward and Gorman argue.

The study was funded by the National Institute on Aging and National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. Demography is the peer-reviewed journal published by the Population Association of America.

The full article, "The Long Arm of Childhood: The Influence of Early-Life Social Conditions on Men's Mortality," can be obtained from the Center for Public Information on Population Research, e-mail: jhaaga@prb.org, or phone 202-939-5414. The Center, a project of the Population Reference Bureau, is funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.