Early life social incongruities, health risk factors and chronic disease

This study tested specific hypotheses concerned with the relationships between three early life stress variables occurring between 0 and 16 yr of age and a variety of adult health status measures ascertained some 20-60 yr later in a 40% sample of the Tecumseh Community Health Study population 35-69 yr of age. The hypotheses stated that each of the following characteristics, relatively greater residential geographic mobility during childhood, being deprived of one or both natural parents for one or more years during this early formative period, and experiencing parental status incongruence, would be associated with higher levels of nine risk factors, greater prevalence of five chronic diseases, and a greater rate of mortality. The risk factors were systolic and diastolic blood pressure, blood glucose level, serum cholesterol, serum uric acid, the F.E.V.1.0 measure of lung function; adiposity, number of cigarettes smoked currently, and amount of alcohol consumed currently. The chronic conditions were CHD, hypertension, diabetes, chronic bronchitis and asthma. Also measured were the aggregation of these chronic conditions and whether or not the respondents ever smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol.Five mobility measures and an index were developed. As predicted, in general, significant relationships were found among women between the five separate mobility variables and the health measures. Specifically, all five separate measures of mobility were related to CHD among older women, and most were related to cigarette smoking and alcohol consumption among all women. Various of the five mobility measures were related to various other specific health measures. In general, mobility was not related to the health measures studied among men. The hypotheses concerning parental deprivation and parental status incongruency were not substantiated by the data.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/22946/1/0000513.pd