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Epidemiol Rev 2004;26:7-21
© 2004 by the Oxford University Press

Childhood Socioeconomic Circumstances and Cause-specific Mortality in Adulthood: Systematic Review and Interpretation

Bruna Galobardes1, John W. Lynch2 and George Davey Smith1

1 Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Bristol, United Kingdom.
2 Department of Epidemiology and Center for Social Epidemiology and Population Health, University of Michigan School of Public Health, Ann Arbor, MI.

Correspondence to George Davey Smith, Department of Social Medicine, University of Bristol, Whiteladies Road, Canynge Hall, Bristol BS8 2PR, United Kingdom (e-mail: George.Davey-Smith@bristol.ac.uk).

Received for publication December 22, 2003; accepted for publication February 5, 2004.


Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; OR, odds ratio.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.


    INTRODUCTION
 
There is convincing evidence that exposures acting across the life course influence adult health outcomes (1–3). Lifecourse epidemiology examines a range of potential processes through which exposures acting at different stages of life can, singly or in combination, influence disease risk (table 1) (4). In the critical period model, an exposure acting at a specific time has long-lasting effects on the structure or function of the body. The fetal origins hypothesis, in its original formulation, took this approach (5). Other examples of processes where outcomes appear to depend upon the time window during which an exposure acts are limb development (in relation to maternal thalidomide use); infection with hepatitis B and risk of adulthood liver cancer (with very early postnatal infection being most implicated); and environmental lead exposure, which results in serious neurodevelopmental deficits only if occurring in infancy and childhood . . . [Full Text of this Article]


    MATERIALS AND METHODS
 

    RESULTS
 
Overall mortality

Overall cardiovascular disease mortality

Coronary heart disease mortality

Stroke

Rheumatic heart disease

Overall cancer mortality

Lung and smoking-related cancer mortality

Other cancer mortality

Respiratory disease mortality

External causes of death

Accidents and violence. Suicide. Alcohol- and illegal drug-related mortality


    DISCUSSION
 
Evidence for early life socioeconomic effects from ecologic, migrant, and disease trend studies, and nonfatal outcomes

Ecologic studies. Migration and place of birth studies. Evidence from long-term disease trends. Specificity of effects of childhood circumstances

Measurement and other issues

Conclusion


    ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
 

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