Printed in U.SA. Childhood Socioeconomic Position and Adult Cardiovascular Mortality: The

The relation between childhood socioeconomic position and adult cardiovascular mortality is examined in 3,750 individuals whose families took part in the Carnegie survey of family diet and health in England and Scotland between 1937 and 1939. The trend in coronary heart disease mortality across social position groups was not statistically significant at conventional levels (p = 0.12), while a strong linear trend was seen for stroke mortality (p = 0.01). Adjustment for the Townsend deprivation index of area of residence during adult life did not materially alter these findings, indicating that the effects of socioeconomic influences upon particular cardiovascular diseases differ according to the age at which they are experienced. Am J Epidemiol 1999:150:1081-4. cardiovascular diseases; cohort studies; social class Epidemiologic interest has shifted over recent years from an almost exclusive interest in adult risk factors toward examining the extent to which adult disease may represent the outcome of processes occurring early in life. The relevance of this work to understanding mechanisms of disease and to guiding preventive strategies lies in determining the relative importance of early and later life influences and the interactions between them (1,2). The broad impact of socioeconomic influences upon health is well known, but it is now becoming clear that these may have a cumulative effect over the life course (3) and that dif-ferent disease outcomes may be influenced by socioeconomic circumstances prevailing at different stages of life (4). Here we investigate the extent to which cardiovascular disease may be associated with social position in childhood by means of a 60-year follow-up of a cohort of children studied in th