2-173 - From Childhood Adversity to Adult Health Outcomes: Understanding the Biological and Behavioral Pathways

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Integrative Statement

Individuals exposed to childhood adversity are disproportionately affected by morbidity and mortality due to numerous adult physical illnesses. In this symposium we strive to delineate the pathways towards some of these health disparities. The papers employ diverse measures of childhood adversity (cumulative exposure index, perinatal stress, child maltreatment, and childhood poverty) as well as several health-relevant endpoints in adulthood (inflammation, telomere length, obesity, and allostatic load), but consistently link childhood adversity to deleterious health-related outcomes in adulthood. Using data (N=1180) from the national MIDUS study, Paper 1 reports that a) childhood adversity and recent stressors have independent and additive roles in predicting inflammation at midlife, and b) sympathetic nervous system activity and unhealthy behaviors at midlife may explain some of these associations. Papers 2 and 3 present findings from a large population-representative birth cohort from the prospective longitudinal Dunedin Study (N=1037). Paper 2 links perinatal complications to objective and subjective indicators of aging (telomere length in leukocytes and perceived facial age) at age 38 years. Paper 3 shows that objectively-documented child maltreatment is prospectively associated with longitudinal obesity trajectories between ages 5 and 38. Paper 4 presents data from a prospective longitudinal study of childhood poverty (N=251) and shows that income-to-needs during elementary school prospectively predicts a composite measure of allostatic load –an index of chronic stress- in adulthood (age 23 years). In total, the papers examine several promising biological and behavioral pathways for understanding how varied childhood adversities become biologically embedded to influence health outcomes decades later.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes

Chair

• Camelia E Hostinar, Northwestern University

Individual Presentations

• Additive Roles of Childhood Adversity and Recent Stressors in Predicting Inflammation at Midlife: Findings from the MIDUS Study - Presenting Author: Camelia E Hostinar, Northwestern University; Gregory Miller, Northwestern University

• Perinatal Complications Predict Subjective and Objective Aging Indicators by Midlife - Presenting Author: Idan Shalev, The Pennsylvania State University; Avshalom Caspi, Duke University; Terrie E. Moffitt, Duke University

• Child Maltreatment and Obesity Trajectories into Adult Life - Presenting Author: Andrea Danese, King's College London

• Childhood Poverty and Adult Chronic Stress: A Life Course Perspective - Presenting Author: Gary W Evans, Cornell Univ