Original ArticleCumulative Adversity in Childhood and Emergent Risk Factors for Long-Term Health
Section snippets
Methods
Study participants were members of the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC), a prospective investigation of children born to mothers living in Avon County with estimated delivery dates between April 1991 and December 1992.15 The ALSPAC was designed to study how biological, social, and environmental factors influence pregnancy outcomes and child development. Approximately 85% of eligible pregnant women agreed to participate (n = 14 541), and 13 988 children who were alive at
Results
Characteristics of the study sample, including mean and proportional values of the outcomes, predictors, and covariates, are presented in Table II. The sample had a similar proportion of girls and boys and was almost entirely white (consistent with the regional population), and there was variation in maternal education. The number of children exposed to each risk factor ranged across the cumulative adversity scores at each developmental period: maternal psychopathology, 417-478; 1 adult in the
Discussion
At age 7 years, mean cumulative adversity and chronic exposure to high adversity were associated with elevated BMI and internalizing and externalizing symptoms, but not with elevated BP. Adversity scores for all 4 developmental periods were associated with elevated internalizing and externalizing symptomatology, whereas these associations for BMI were less robust. Cumulative adversity at age 1.5-3 years was the sole assessment associated with a change in BMI z-score between 7 and 11 years, and
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Funded by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support the Early Childhood Innovation Project based at the Center on the Developing Child at Harvard University (to N.S.). ALSPAC supported by the UK Medical Research Council the Wellcome Trust (092731) and the University of Bristol. The authors declare no conflicts of interest.