Macroeconomic Conditions in Early Life and Later-life Mortality Risk among US Men and Women

• In Event: 241 - Section on Evolution, Biology and Society Paper Session. Integrating Evolutionary and Biological Thinking into Sociological Inquiry

Abstract

Background: The developmental origins perspective of health has been increasingly tested by
linking exogenous events during gestation to health outcomes later in life. In this paper, I analyze
the association between US economic recessions during gestational trimesters between 1902 and
1956 and adult mortality risks from circulatory diseases, lung cancer, and accidents between
1986 and 2006.
Methods: Data from the National Health Interview Surveys-Linked Mortality Files 1986-2004
were combined with National Bureau of Economic Research data on quarter-years of official
recessions and quarter-years of Gross National Product (GNP) per capita for years 1902-1956.
Survival among US men and women aged 50 to 85 was analyzed using Cox regression models.
The effects of in utero trimester-specific recessions on later-life mortality risk from circulatory
diseases, lung cancer, and accidents were examined.
Results: Significant associations were found to exist between economic recessions during the
third trimester of gestation and later-life mortality risk from circulatory diseases. No significant
associations were found between in utero exposure to economic recessions and adult mortality
risk from lung cancer or accidental causes.
Conclusions: Findings suggest that in utero adverse economic conditions for US cohorts born
1902 through 1956 were associated with later-life mortality risk from circulatory diseases. The
results are consistent with existing evidence and theory implicating developmental processes in
early life to be strongly associated with cardiovascular disease susceptibility in older adulthood.

Author

• Ryan K. Masters, University of Colorado-Boulder