G Davey Smith
Biographic Data
| ID | 3928858 |
|---|---|
| NAME | G Davey Smith |
| GIVEN NAMES | G Davey |
| FAMILY NAME | Smith |
| SIGNATURE | SMITH G D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Bristol |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 33 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 319 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 33 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| H-INDEX | 11 |
Is the association between childhood socioeconomic circumstances and cause-specific mortality established? Update of a systematic review
Psychological distress, physical illness, and risk of coronary heart disease
Study objective: The aims of this study are to confirm the association between psychological distress and coronary heart disease (CHD) using an epidemiological community study with hospital admissions data and to examine if any association is explained by existing illness. Design: Prospective cohort study modelling the association between psychological distress, measured using the 30 item general health questionnaire (GHQ), and hospital admission…
Birth weight is inversely associated with coronary heart disease in post-menopausal women
Objectives: (1) To assess the association between birth weight and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in a cohort of post-menopausal women, (2) to determine the combined effects of birth weight and adult body mass index on CHD, (3) to assess the role of insulin resistance as a mediating factor in the associations. Design: Cross sectional survey. Setting: 23 British towns. Participants: 1394 women aged 60–79 years. Main outcome measures: coronary h…
Fibrinogen, social position, and risk of heart disease
The report by Jousilahti and colleagues adds to growing evidence of a consistent association between serum inflammatory markers—particularly fibrinogen—and social position.1–3 These authors interpret their data as suggesting that the fibrinogen-social position link is not merely a reflection of the social patterning of prevalent disease, smoking, and obesity (all of which are associated with increased serum fibrinogen and lower social position) a…
Type 2 diabetes in grandparents and birth weight in offspring and grandchildren in the ALSPAC study
Objective: To examine the association between a history of type 2 diabetes and birth weight of offspring and grandchildren. Design: Prospective observational study. Diabetic status, as reported by mothers (F1 generation) was collected on grandparents (F0) of babies (F2) born to mothers (F1) who participated in a study of maternal and child health. Associations between risk of grandparental diabetes and birth weight in mothers (F1) and grandchildr…
Childhood social class and adulthood obesity
A ssociations between obesity and adverse health outcomes, including cardiorespiratory disease, diabetes, and cancer, are well documented.1 These diseases are likely to pose ever increasing public health problems as the prevalence of obesity increases. The prevention of obesity requires an understanding of its determinants throughout the lifecourse. A recent review concluded that childhood socioeconomic position is inversely related to adult obes…
Associations of height, leg length, and lung function with cardiovascular risk factors in the Midspan Family Study
Background: Taller people and those with better lung function are at reduced risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Biological mechanisms for these associations are not well understood, but both measures may be markers for early life exposures. Some studies have shown that leg length, an indicator of pre-pubertal nutritional status, is the component of height most strongly associated with CHD risk. Other studies show that height-CHD associations a…
Childhood mental ability and smoking cessation in adulthood
The social and smoking data were from two of the Midspan prospective cohort studies conducted in the 1970s—the Collaborative study and the Renfrew/Paisley study. Participants completed a questionnaire and attended a physical examination. Occupational social class was coded according to the registrar general’s classification. The home address of the participants at the time of screening was retrospectively postcoded to allow deprivation category a…
Impact of childhood and adulthood socioeconomic position on cause specific mortality
Objective: To study the impact of childhood and adulthood social circumstances on cause specific adult mortality. Design: Census data on housing conditions from 1960 and Personal Register income data for 1990 were linked to 1990–94 death registrations, and relative indices of inequality were computed for housing conditions in 1960 and for household income in 1990. Participants: The 128 723 inhabitants in Oslo aged 31–50 years in 1990. Main result…
Effects of income and wealth on GHQ depression and poor self rated health in white collar women and men in the Whitehall II study
Study objective: To determine whether measures of income and wealth are associated with poor self rated health and GHQ depression. Design: Whitehall II study of London based civil servants re-interviewed between 1997–1999; 7162 participants. Main results: A twofold age adjusted difference in morbidity was observed between the top and bottom of the personal income hierarchy for both sexes. For household income and particularly for wealth these ass…
Fruit, vegetables, and antioxidants in childhood and risk of adult cancer
Study objective: To examine associations between food and nutrient intake, measured in childhood, and adult cancer in a cohort with over 60 years follow up. Design and setting: The study is based on the Boyd Orr cohort. Intake of fruit and vegetables, energy, vitamins C and E, carotene, and retinol was assessed from seven day household food inventories carried out during a study of family diet and health in 16 rural and urban areas of England and…
Combination of low birth weight and high adult body mass index
Objective: To investigate growth trajectories and predictive factors for those with low birth weight and high adult BMI. Design: Birth cohort study. Setting: England, Scotland, and Wales. Participants: All born 3–9 March, 1958. Main outcome measures: People at “high risk” of adult disease were defined as having a combination of lower birth weight (in the lowest third of the distribution) and high BMI (in the highest third of the distribution at a…
Association between offspring birth weight and atherosclerosis in middle aged men and women
L ow birth weight is associated with cardiovascular disease in adulthood, but the mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear.1 One possibility is that poor intra-uterine nutrition “programmes” adult disease.1 An alternative hypothesis is that specific polymorphisms with pleiotrophic effects result in both small birth size and cardiovascular disease risk.2 Epidemiological evidence for a genetic role in the association comes from the r…
Temperament in young adulthood and later mortality
Study objective: To determine the association between a clinician assessment of temperament in early adulthood and cause specific mortality. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: Glasgow University. Participants: 9239 male former students aged 16–30 (mean 20.5) years who participated in an ongoing health survey from 1948–68. A physician recorded free text assessment of temperament, which seemed to capture aspects of personality (trait…
Relation between number of siblings and adult mortality and stroke risk
Study objective: To investigate the relation between number of siblings, mortality risk, and stroke risk. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: 27 workplaces in Scotland. Participants: 5765 employed men aged 35–64 from a variety of different workplaces, screened between 1970 and 1973. Main results: There were strong relationships between number of siblings and socioeconomic variables and also with adult behavioural measures. Men with greater…
Mortality and political climate
Do conservative governments make people want to die? The paper by Page and colleagues adds to a growing literature that considers the effect of the political environment (whether from the point of view of which political regime holds power or considering in more detail the proportion of population voting for particular parties) and mortality.1,2 In this case the specific cause of death in question is suicide, and the paper thus adds to a long tra…
Sexual intercourse and risk of ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease
Objective: To examine the relation between frequency of sexual intercourse and risk of ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease. Design: Cohort study with 20 year follow up. Setting: The town of Caerphilly, South Wales and five adjacent villages. Subjects: 914 men aged 45–59 years at time of recruitment in 1979 to 1983. Main outcome measures: Ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease, all first events and fatal events. Results: Of the 914 me…
Change in health inequalities among British civil servants
Study objective: Despite an overall decline in mortality rates, the social gradient in mortality has increased over the past two decades. However, evidence on trends in morbidity and cardiovascular risk factors indicates that socioeconomic differences are static or narrowing. The objective of this study was to investigate morbidity and cardiovascular risk factor trends in white collar British civil servants. Design: Self rated health, longstandin…
Limitations of adjustment for reporting tendency in observational studies of stress and self reported coronary heart disease
Recently, observational evidence has been suggested to show a causal association between various "psychosocial" exposures, including psychological stress, and heart disease. Much of this evidence derives from studies in which a self reported psychosocial exposure is related to an outcome dependent on the subjective experience of coronary heart disease (CHD) symptoms. Such outcomes may be measured using standard symptom questionnaires (like the Ro…
Body mass index in young adulthood and cancer mortality
Study objective: To examine the relation between body mass index (BMI) in young adulthood and subsequent mortality from cancer. Design: Cohort study. Setting: University of Glasgow student health service. Weight and height were measured by a physician, and used to calculate BMI. Participants: 8335 men and 2340 women who attended the student health service while at university between 1948 and 1968, and who were followed up with the NHS central reg…
Height, body mass index, and survival in men with coronary disease
Taller people have a lower risk of coronary death and death from all causes,1 but there are few data on the association between height and survival in those with coronary disease. Similarly being either underweight or obese is associated with increased coronary and all cause mortality 2 but the association of body mass index (BMI) and survival in people with symptomatic coronary heart disease has not been so widely reported.3,4 We examined these …
Sex specific difference in the relation between birth weight and arterial compliance in young adults
Individual employment histories and subsequent cause specific hospital admissions and mortality
It is a widely held view that the labour market is demanding increased levels of flexibility, and that this is causing greater psychosocial stress among employees.1 Such stress may affect health, either through neuroendocrine pathways, or through increases in behaviours linked with poor health.2 Previously we presented evidence linking an unstable employment history, as measured by a greater number of job changes and shorter duration of current j…
Homocysteine and ischaemic stroke in men
OBJECTIVE: To assess the risk of ischaemic stroke associated with total serum homocyst(e)ine (tHcy) concentration. DESIGN: Cohort study. SETTING: Caerphilly, South Wales PARTICIPANTS: 2254 men age 50 to 64 years recruited between 1984 and 1988. RESULTS: 107 men developed ischaemic stroke and mean follow up time was 10.2 years. There was no significant difference in mean serum total homocyst(e)ine levels between stroke cases (12.2 micromol 95% CI …
Are the effects of psychosocial exposures attributable to confounding? Evidence from a prospective observational study on psychological stress and mortality
STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between perceived psychological stress and cause specific mortality in a population where perceived stress was not associated with material disadvantage. DESIGN: Prospective observational study with follow up of 21 years and repeat screening of half the cohort five years from baseline. Measures included perceived psychological stress, coronary risk factors, and indices of lifecourse socioeconomic posit…
Social capital—Is it a good investment strategy for public health
Social kapital
Impact of childhood and adulthood socioeconomic position on cause specific mortality
Objective: To study the impact of childhood and adulthood social circumstances on cause specific adult mortality. Design: Census data on housing conditions from 1960 and Personal Register income data for 1990 were linked to 1990–94 death registrations, and relative indices of inequality were computed for housing conditions in 1960 and for household income in 1990. Participants: The 128 723 inhabitants in Oslo aged 31–50 years in 1990. Main result…
Fruit, vegetables, and antioxidants in childhood and risk of adult cancer
Study objective: To examine associations between food and nutrient intake, measured in childhood, and adult cancer in a cohort with over 60 years follow up. Design and setting: The study is based on the Boyd Orr cohort. Intake of fruit and vegetables, energy, vitamins C and E, carotene, and retinol was assessed from seven day household food inventories carried out during a study of family diet and health in 16 rural and urban areas of England and…
Effects of income and wealth on GHQ depression and poor self rated health in white collar women and men in the Whitehall II study
Study objective: To determine whether measures of income and wealth are associated with poor self rated health and GHQ depression. Design: Whitehall II study of London based civil servants re-interviewed between 1997–1999; 7162 participants. Main results: A twofold age adjusted difference in morbidity was observed between the top and bottom of the personal income hierarchy for both sexes. For household income and particularly for wealth these ass…
Associations of height, leg length, and lung function with cardiovascular risk factors in the Midspan Family Study
Background: Taller people and those with better lung function are at reduced risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Biological mechanisms for these associations are not well understood, but both measures may be markers for early life exposures. Some studies have shown that leg length, an indicator of pre-pubertal nutritional status, is the component of height most strongly associated with CHD risk. Other studies show that height-CHD associations a…
Childhood mental ability and smoking cessation in adulthood
The social and smoking data were from two of the Midspan prospective cohort studies conducted in the 1970s—the Collaborative study and the Renfrew/Paisley study. Participants completed a questionnaire and attended a physical examination. Occupational social class was coded according to the registrar general’s classification. The home address of the participants at the time of screening was retrospectively postcoded to allow deprivation category a…
Relation between number of siblings and adult mortality and stroke risk
Study objective: To investigate the relation between number of siblings, mortality risk, and stroke risk. Design: Prospective cohort study. Setting: 27 workplaces in Scotland. Participants: 5765 employed men aged 35–64 from a variety of different workplaces, screened between 1970 and 1973. Main results: There were strong relationships between number of siblings and socioeconomic variables and also with adult behavioural measures. Men with greater…
Are the effects of psychosocial exposures attributable to confounding? Evidence from a prospective observational study on psychological stress and mortality
STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between perceived psychological stress and cause specific mortality in a population where perceived stress was not associated with material disadvantage. DESIGN: Prospective observational study with follow up of 21 years and repeat screening of half the cohort five years from baseline. Measures included perceived psychological stress, coronary risk factors, and indices of lifecourse socioeconomic posit…
Milk, coronary heart disease and mortality
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To study the association between reported milk consumption and cardiovascular and all cause mortality. DESIGN: A prospective study of 5765 men aged 35-64 at the time of examination. SETTING: Workplaces in the west of Scotland between 1970 and 1973. PARTICIPANTS: Men who completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire, which asked about daily milk consumption, and who attended for a medical examination. MAIN RESULTS: 150 (2.6%) men…
Childhood housing conditions and later mortality in the Boyd Orr cohort
STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine associations between five measures of housing conditions during childhood and subsequent mortality from all causes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer. DESIGN: Historical cohort study. SETTING: Data on housing conditions were collected from survey centres in 16 areas of England and Scotland. PARTICIPANTS: Children of families participating in the Carnegie Survey of Family Diet and Health in pre-war Britain (19…
Change in health inequalities among British civil servants
Study objective: Despite an overall decline in mortality rates, the social gradient in mortality has increased over the past two decades. However, evidence on trends in morbidity and cardiovascular risk factors indicates that socioeconomic differences are static or narrowing. The objective of this study was to investigate morbidity and cardiovascular risk factor trends in white collar British civil servants. Design: Self rated health, longstandin…
Childhood social class and adulthood obesity
A ssociations between obesity and adverse health outcomes, including cardiorespiratory disease, diabetes, and cancer, are well documented.1 These diseases are likely to pose ever increasing public health problems as the prevalence of obesity increases. The prevention of obesity requires an understanding of its determinants throughout the lifecourse. A recent review concluded that childhood socioeconomic position is inversely related to adult obes…
Mortality and political climate
Do conservative governments make people want to die? The paper by Page and colleagues adds to a growing literature that considers the effect of the political environment (whether from the point of view of which political regime holds power or considering in more detail the proportion of population voting for particular parties) and mortality.1,2 In this case the specific cause of death in question is suicide, and the paper thus adds to a long tra…
Psychological distress, physical illness, and risk of coronary heart disease
Study objective: The aims of this study are to confirm the association between psychological distress and coronary heart disease (CHD) using an epidemiological community study with hospital admissions data and to examine if any association is explained by existing illness. Design: Prospective cohort study modelling the association between psychological distress, measured using the 30 item general health questionnaire (GHQ), and hospital admission…
Birth weight is inversely associated with coronary heart disease in post-menopausal women
Objectives: (1) To assess the association between birth weight and coronary heart disease (CHD) risk in a cohort of post-menopausal women, (2) to determine the combined effects of birth weight and adult body mass index on CHD, (3) to assess the role of insulin resistance as a mediating factor in the associations. Design: Cross sectional survey. Setting: 23 British towns. Participants: 1394 women aged 60–79 years. Main outcome measures: coronary h…
Height, body mass index, and survival in men with coronary disease
Taller people have a lower risk of coronary death and death from all causes,1 but there are few data on the association between height and survival in those with coronary disease. Similarly being either underweight or obese is associated with increased coronary and all cause mortality 2 but the association of body mass index (BMI) and survival in people with symptomatic coronary heart disease has not been so widely reported.3,4 We examined these …
Homocysteine and ischaemic stroke in men
OBJECTIVE: To assess the risk of ischaemic stroke associated with total serum homocyst(e)ine (tHcy) concentration. DESIGN: Cohort study. SETTING: Caerphilly, South Wales PARTICIPANTS: 2254 men age 50 to 64 years recruited between 1984 and 1988. RESULTS: 107 men developed ischaemic stroke and mean follow up time was 10.2 years. There was no significant difference in mean serum total homocyst(e)ine levels between stroke cases (12.2 micromol 95% CI …
The relation between adult height and haemorrhagic and ischaemic stroke in the Renfrew/Paisley study
Adult height is a useful marker of fetal growth, growth and nutrition in childhood and childhood infections. Studies reporting inverse associations between height and stroke therefore provide support for the hypothesis that exposures acting in early life are important determinants of risk of stroke. 1 2 However, few studies have been able to examine the association between height and stroke subtype. We recently showed that height is inversely rel…
Combination of low birth weight and high adult body mass index
Objective: To investigate growth trajectories and predictive factors for those with low birth weight and high adult BMI. Design: Birth cohort study. Setting: England, Scotland, and Wales. Participants: All born 3–9 March, 1958. Main outcome measures: People at “high risk” of adult disease were defined as having a combination of lower birth weight (in the lowest third of the distribution) and high BMI (in the highest third of the distribution at a…
Limitations of adjustment for reporting tendency in observational studies of stress and self reported coronary heart disease
Recently, observational evidence has been suggested to show a causal association between various "psychosocial" exposures, including psychological stress, and heart disease. Much of this evidence derives from studies in which a self reported psychosocial exposure is related to an outcome dependent on the subjective experience of coronary heart disease (CHD) symptoms. Such outcomes may be measured using standard symptom questionnaires (like the Ro…
Body mass index in young adulthood and cancer mortality
Study objective: To examine the relation between body mass index (BMI) in young adulthood and subsequent mortality from cancer. Design: Cohort study. Setting: University of Glasgow student health service. Weight and height were measured by a physician, and used to calculate BMI. Participants: 8335 men and 2340 women who attended the student health service while at university between 1948 and 1968, and who were followed up with the NHS central reg…
Smoking in adolescence and young adulthood and mortality in later life
As experimentation with smoking occurs overwhelmingly in adolescence, a major objective of government strategy is to reduce smoking among young people.1 However, most studies of the association between mortality and smoking have relied on data for people whose smoking behaviour was recorded in middle age; teenagers and young adults may not see the relevance of messages derived from these studies or may feel that they are to some extent immune fro…
How accurate is self reported birth weight among the elderly
The effect of early life influences on adult health is a central topic in current epidemiological research. For instance, growth and development in utero and in infancy have been linked to cardiovascular disease.1 In empirical research in this field, birth weight is often used as an indicator of health and nutrition in utero. There are two main sources of birthweight data: birth records and the memories of subjects or their families, or both. Whe…
Association between offspring birth weight and atherosclerosis in middle aged men and women
L ow birth weight is associated with cardiovascular disease in adulthood, but the mechanisms underlying these associations remain unclear.1 One possibility is that poor intra-uterine nutrition “programmes” adult disease.1 An alternative hypothesis is that specific polymorphisms with pleiotrophic effects result in both small birth size and cardiovascular disease risk.2 Epidemiological evidence for a genetic role in the association comes from the r…
Temperament in young adulthood and later mortality
Study objective: To determine the association between a clinician assessment of temperament in early adulthood and cause specific mortality. Design: Prospective observational study. Setting: Glasgow University. Participants: 9239 male former students aged 16–30 (mean 20.5) years who participated in an ongoing health survey from 1948–68. A physician recorded free text assessment of temperament, which seemed to capture aspects of personality (trait…
Social capital—Is it a good investment strategy for public health
Social kapital
How accurate is self reported birth weight among the elderly
The effect of early life influences on adult health is a central topic in current epidemiological research. For instance, growth and development in utero and in infancy have been linked to cardiovascular disease.1 In empirical research in this field, birth weight is often used as an indicator of health and nutrition in utero. There are two main sources of birthweight data: birth records and the memories of subjects or their families, or both. Whe…
Sex specific difference in the relation between birth weight and arterial compliance in young adults
Individual employment histories and subsequent cause specific hospital admissions and mortality
It is a widely held view that the labour market is demanding increased levels of flexibility, and that this is causing greater psychosocial stress among employees.1 Such stress may affect health, either through neuroendocrine pathways, or through increases in behaviours linked with poor health.2 Previously we presented evidence linking an unstable employment history, as measured by a greater number of job changes and shorter duration of current j…
Homocysteine and ischaemic stroke in men
OBJECTIVE: To assess the risk of ischaemic stroke associated with total serum homocyst(e)ine (tHcy) concentration. DESIGN: Cohort study. SETTING: Caerphilly, South Wales PARTICIPANTS: 2254 men age 50 to 64 years recruited between 1984 and 1988. RESULTS: 107 men developed ischaemic stroke and mean follow up time was 10.2 years. There was no significant difference in mean serum total homocyst(e)ine levels between stroke cases (12.2 micromol 95% CI …
Are the effects of psychosocial exposures attributable to confounding? Evidence from a prospective observational study on psychological stress and mortality
STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine the association between perceived psychological stress and cause specific mortality in a population where perceived stress was not associated with material disadvantage. DESIGN: Prospective observational study with follow up of 21 years and repeat screening of half the cohort five years from baseline. Measures included perceived psychological stress, coronary risk factors, and indices of lifecourse socioeconomic posit…
The relation between adult height and haemorrhagic and ischaemic stroke in the Renfrew/Paisley study
Adult height is a useful marker of fetal growth, growth and nutrition in childhood and childhood infections. Studies reporting inverse associations between height and stroke therefore provide support for the hypothesis that exposures acting in early life are important determinants of risk of stroke. 1 2 However, few studies have been able to examine the association between height and stroke subtype. We recently showed that height is inversely rel…
Milk, coronary heart disease and mortality
STUDY OBJECTIVE: To study the association between reported milk consumption and cardiovascular and all cause mortality. DESIGN: A prospective study of 5765 men aged 35-64 at the time of examination. SETTING: Workplaces in the west of Scotland between 1970 and 1973. PARTICIPANTS: Men who completed a health and lifestyle questionnaire, which asked about daily milk consumption, and who attended for a medical examination. MAIN RESULTS: 150 (2.6%) men…
The relation between questions indicating transient ischaemic attack and stroke in 20 years of follow up in men and women in the Renfrew/Paisley Study
STUDY OBJECTIVE: Transient ischaemic attack (TIA) is often a precursor to stroke, so identification of people experiencing TIA could assist in stroke prevention by indicating those at high risk of stroke who would benefit most from intervention for other stroke risk factors. The objective of this study was to investigate whether answers to a simple questionnaire for TIA could predict the occurrence of stroke in the following 20 years. DESIGN: Pro…
Childhood housing conditions and later mortality in the Boyd Orr cohort
STUDY OBJECTIVES: To examine associations between five measures of housing conditions during childhood and subsequent mortality from all causes, coronary heart disease, stroke, and cancer. DESIGN: Historical cohort study. SETTING: Data on housing conditions were collected from survey centres in 16 areas of England and Scotland. PARTICIPANTS: Children of families participating in the Carnegie Survey of Family Diet and Health in pre-war Britain (19…
Smoking in adolescence and young adulthood and mortality in later life
As experimentation with smoking occurs overwhelmingly in adolescence, a major objective of government strategy is to reduce smoking among young people.1 However, most studies of the association between mortality and smoking have relied on data for people whose smoking behaviour was recorded in middle age; teenagers and young adults may not see the relevance of messages derived from these studies or may feel that they are to some extent immune fro…
What determines drop out in prospective studies of coronary heart disease risk factors between youth and young adulthood
The growing recognition of the importance of early life factors in the development of coronary heart disease (CHD) may increase prospective research in this period of life. From a methodological point of view, drop out of subjects, particularly when this is selective, is a major threat to the validity of the results. Specific information about determinants of drop out in current studies may therefore yield important information for future studies…
Mortality and political climate
Do conservative governments make people want to die? The paper by Page and colleagues adds to a growing literature that considers the effect of the political environment (whether from the point of view of which political regime holds power or considering in more detail the proportion of population voting for particular parties) and mortality.1,2 In this case the specific cause of death in question is suicide, and the paper thus adds to a long tra…
Sexual intercourse and risk of ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease
Objective: To examine the relation between frequency of sexual intercourse and risk of ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease. Design: Cohort study with 20 year follow up. Setting: The town of Caerphilly, South Wales and five adjacent villages. Subjects: 914 men aged 45–59 years at time of recruitment in 1979 to 1983. Main outcome measures: Ischaemic stroke and coronary heart disease, all first events and fatal events. Results: Of the 914 me…
Change in health inequalities among British civil servants
Study objective: Despite an overall decline in mortality rates, the social gradient in mortality has increased over the past two decades. However, evidence on trends in morbidity and cardiovascular risk factors indicates that socioeconomic differences are static or narrowing. The objective of this study was to investigate morbidity and cardiovascular risk factor trends in white collar British civil servants. Design: Self rated health, longstandin…
Limitations of adjustment for reporting tendency in observational studies of stress and self reported coronary heart disease
Recently, observational evidence has been suggested to show a causal association between various "psychosocial" exposures, including psychological stress, and heart disease. Much of this evidence derives from studies in which a self reported psychosocial exposure is related to an outcome dependent on the subjective experience of coronary heart disease (CHD) symptoms. Such outcomes may be measured using standard symptom questionnaires (like the Ro…
Body mass index in young adulthood and cancer mortality
Study objective: To examine the relation between body mass index (BMI) in young adulthood and subsequent mortality from cancer. Design: Cohort study. Setting: University of Glasgow student health service. Weight and height were measured by a physician, and used to calculate BMI. Participants: 8335 men and 2340 women who attended the student health service while at university between 1948 and 1968, and who were followed up with the NHS central reg…
Height, body mass index, and survival in men with coronary disease
Taller people have a lower risk of coronary death and death from all causes,1 but there are few data on the association between height and survival in those with coronary disease. Similarly being either underweight or obese is associated with increased coronary and all cause mortality 2 but the association of body mass index (BMI) and survival in people with symptomatic coronary heart disease has not been so widely reported.3,4 We examined these …
Childhood social class and adulthood obesity
A ssociations between obesity and adverse health outcomes, including cardiorespiratory disease, diabetes, and cancer, are well documented.1 These diseases are likely to pose ever increasing public health problems as the prevalence of obesity increases. The prevention of obesity requires an understanding of its determinants throughout the lifecourse. A recent review concluded that childhood socioeconomic position is inversely related to adult obes…
Associations of height, leg length, and lung function with cardiovascular risk factors in the Midspan Family Study
Background: Taller people and those with better lung function are at reduced risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). Biological mechanisms for these associations are not well understood, but both measures may be markers for early life exposures. Some studies have shown that leg length, an indicator of pre-pubertal nutritional status, is the component of height most strongly associated with CHD risk. Other studies show that height-CHD associations a…
Childhood mental ability and smoking cessation in adulthood
The social and smoking data were from two of the Midspan prospective cohort studies conducted in the 1970s—the Collaborative study and the Renfrew/Paisley study. Participants completed a questionnaire and attended a physical examination. Occupational social class was coded according to the registrar general’s classification. The home address of the participants at the time of screening was retrospectively postcoded to allow deprivation category a…
Impact of childhood and adulthood socioeconomic position on cause specific mortality
Objective: To study the impact of childhood and adulthood social circumstances on cause specific adult mortality. Design: Census data on housing conditions from 1960 and Personal Register income data for 1990 were linked to 1990–94 death registrations, and relative indices of inequality were computed for housing conditions in 1960 and for household income in 1990. Participants: The 128 723 inhabitants in Oslo aged 31–50 years in 1990. Main result…
Effects of income and wealth on GHQ depression and poor self rated health in white collar women and men in the Whitehall II study
Study objective: To determine whether measures of income and wealth are associated with poor self rated health and GHQ depression. Design: Whitehall II study of London based civil servants re-interviewed between 1997–1999; 7162 participants. Main results: A twofold age adjusted difference in morbidity was observed between the top and bottom of the personal income hierarchy for both sexes. For household income and particularly for wealth these ass…
Fruit, vegetables, and antioxidants in childhood and risk of adult cancer
Study objective: To examine associations between food and nutrient intake, measured in childhood, and adult cancer in a cohort with over 60 years follow up. Design and setting: The study is based on the Boyd Orr cohort. Intake of fruit and vegetables, energy, vitamins C and E, carotene, and retinol was assessed from seven day household food inventories carried out during a study of family diet and health in 16 rural and urban areas of England and…
Combination of low birth weight and high adult body mass index
Objective: To investigate growth trajectories and predictive factors for those with low birth weight and high adult BMI. Design: Birth cohort study. Setting: England, Scotland, and Wales. Participants: All born 3–9 March, 1958. Main outcome measures: People at “high risk” of adult disease were defined as having a combination of lower birth weight (in the lowest third of the distribution) and high BMI (in the highest third of the distribution at a…
Medicine (31 works) · Internal Medicine (23 works) · Internal Medicine (23 works) · Demography (20 works) · Gerontology (18 works) · Gerontology (18 works) · Cohort study (15 works) · Cohort (14 works) · Birth, Development, and Health (12 works) · Health disparities and outcomes (11 works)