Socioeconomic circumstances in childhood and trajectories of disability in the second half of life: European longitudinal analysis

Objectives: Using a life course approach we examined the ways in which childhood socioeconomic circumstances (CSC) have an impact on activities of daily life (ADL) and instrumental activities of daily life (IADL), and whether the association is explained by adulthood socioeconomic position (ASP). Methods: Data of 24,440 persons (81,187 observations; 13,648 women) aged 50 years and older in 14 European countries (Survey of Health Ageing and Retirement in Europe) were used to measure the associations between CSC (1 most advantaged, to 5 most disadvantaged) and limitations with ADL and IADL using logistic mixed models stratified by sex. Models were adjusted for education, main occupation during adulthood, satisfaction with household income, confounding factors (birth cohorts, welfare regimes, not living with biological parents), cohort attrition and disability covariates in later later life (body mass index, partnership status, number of chronic diseases). Results: For women, analyses showed that the lower the CSC, the higher the limitations with ADL. The association of an advantaged CSC (OR=0.24, p