Work

Does Growing Childhood Socioeconomic Inequality Mean Future Inequality in Adult Health?

Year: 2015

Type: article

Abstract: Over the past half century, American children have experienced increasingly unequal childhoods. The goal of this article is to begin to understand the implications of recent trends in social and economic inequalities among children for the future of inequalities in health among adults. The relative importance of many of the causal pathways linking childhood social and economic circumstances to adult health remains underexplored, and we know even less about how these causal pathways have changed over time. I combine a series of original analyses with reviews of relevant literature in a number of fields to inform a discussion of what growing childhood inequalities might mean for future inequalities in adult health. In the end, I argue that there is good reason to suppose that growing inequalities in children's social and economic circumstances will lead to greater heterogeneity in adults' morbidity and mortality.

Source: The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science

DOI: 10.1177/0002716215596981

Author: John Robert Warren

Institution: University of Minnesota

Language: English

Topic: Health disparities and outcomes

Subfield: Health

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDGs: Good health and well-being, Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: green

Funders: National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Aging, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development