The Long Arm of Childhood: Pathways to Later-Life Health
Proteomic signatures underlying the relationship between adverse childhood experiences and multimorbidity: evidence from the 1958 National Child Development Study (Raphaële Castagné, EQUITY research team, CERPOP, Toulouse INSERM-University)
Multimorbidity, the co-occurrence of ?2 chronic conditions, is a growing concern across the life course. Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) increase the risk of multiple chronic conditions in later life. Using data from the National Child Development Study (N=18,558; follow-up N=5,056), we examined associations between ACEs, proteomic profiles, and multimorbidity at age 62. Participants with ?2 ACEs had higher levels of adrenomedullin, IL-6, and serine protease 8, which partially mediated the ACEs-multimorbidity link. Findings highlight early-life prevention, psychosocial factors, and the need to move beyond single-disease frameworks toward integrated health approaches.
Life Course Socioeconomic Position and health in older adulthood age: A Formal Mediation Analysis in the 1958 British Birth Cohort (Yiling Guo, UCL Centre for Longitudinal Studies)
Childhood socioeconomic position (SEP) is a key determinant of later-life health. To our knowledge, no prospective study has examined whether childhood SEP remains associated with health at the threshold of older age and the extent to which any such association is mediated by adult SEP. Using data from the 1958 British Birth Cohort, we examined associations between childhood social class and a range of health outcomes at age 62. We used interventional causal mediation analysis to assess the extent to which these associations were mediated by adult SEP, including education, occupational class, housing tenure, and income. We found that disadvantaged childhood socioeconomic position remained associated with poorer health at age 62, after accounting for adult socioeconomic position. The degree of mediation varied by outcome and by sex, with adult socioeconomic factors explaining part, but not all, of the association. These findings suggest that population-level improvements in adult socioeconomic position could reduce, but are unlikely to eliminate, later-life health inequalities associated with childhood SEP.
Using Longitudinal Cohort Data to Inform Prevention Interventions: Analysis of Early-Life Determinants of Multiple Long Term Conditions (Sebastian Stannard, University of Southampton Faculty of Medicine)
Building on early work that developed a conceptual framework of early life domains of future health risk and mapped these domains across UK birth cohorts, we used the 1970 British Cohort Study to examine how five domains from pregnancy through childhood relate to multiple long term conditions (MLTCs) with role limitation at age 46. We also explored the potential impact of early years interventions by applying effect estimates from programmes including Family Hubs, the Family Nurse Partnership, and teenage pregnancy prevention initiatives. These analyses suggested these interventions could have modest but meaningful reductions in risk of MLTCs with role-limitation, particularly for children experiencing higher early-life adversity. Overall, this work highlights the value of birth cohort datasets for generating life course evidence and informing early life prevention policy.
Tobacco smoking and vaping in pregnancy and neonatal outcomes: results from a UK cohort study (Anthony Laverty, Imperial College London)
We examined associations of smoking and vaping during pregnancy with infant outcomes using caregiver reported data for 1,896 babies in the UK Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study (9–10 months). Exposure (smoking/vaping: yes/never) formed four groups. Models adjusted for sociodemographic factors and survey weights. Most mothers (90.1%) neither smoked nor vaped; 2.6% vaped only, 5.5% smoked only, and 1.8% were dual users. Mean birthweight was 3.31kg for unexposed babies and 3.00kg for those of mothers who smoked. Adjusted analyses showed lower birthweight for babies of smokers (-0.34kg) and dual users (-0.39kg). Smoking showed dose response associations with lower birthweight and LBW; vaping showed none. Dual use was associated with longer postnatal hospital stay, while smoking or vaping alone were not. No exposure group differed in neonatal admissions.
