Evidence map›Paper›PMID 12169505›Full record

ArticleBMJ (Clinical research ed.)2002

Birth weight, childhood socioeconomic environment, and cognitive development in the 1958 British birth cohort study.

Barbara J M H Jefferis, Chris Power, Clyde Hertzman

Abstract read
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Article in BMJ (Clinical research ed.), 2002. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 73 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
73citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

73 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
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  7. Children's cognitive performance and suicide risk through middle adulthood.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2023
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  15. The role of health at birth and parental investment in early child development: evidence from the French ELFE cohort.The European journal of health economics : HEPAC : health economics in prevention and care · 2021
    Article
  16. Article
  17. Article
  18. Article
  19. Review
  20. Article

13 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.

4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Barbara J M H JefferisInstitute of Child Health, Centre for Paediatric Epidemiology and Biostatistics, London WC1N 1EH.
Chris Power
Clyde Hertzman

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

objectivesTo examine the combined effect of social class and weight at birth on cognitive trajectories during school age and the associations between birth weight and educational outcomes through to 33 years.

designLongitudinal, population based, birth cohort study.

participants10 845 males and females born during 3-9 March 1958 with information on birth weight, social class, and cognitive tests.

main outcome measuresReading, maths, draw a man, copying designs, verbal and non-verbal ability tests at ages 7, 11, and 16, highest qualifications achieved by 33, and trajectories of maths standardised scores at 7-16 years.

resultsThe outcome of all childhood cognitive tests and educational achievements improved significantly with increasing birth weight. Analysis of maths scores at 7 and of highest qualifications achieved by 33 showed that the relations were robust to adjustment for potential confounding factors. For each kilogram increase in birth weight, maths z score increased by 0.17 (adjusted estimate 0.15, 95% confidence interval 0.10 to 0.21) for males and 0.21 (0.20, 0.14 to 0.25) for females. Trajectories of maths z scores between 7 and 16 years diverged for different social class groups: participants from classes I and II increased their relative position on the score with increasing age, whereas classes IV and V showed a relative decline with increasing age. Birth weight explained much less of the variation in cognition than did social class (range 0.5-1.5% v 2.9-12.5%).

conclusionsThe postnatal environment has an overwhelming influence on cognitive function through to early adulthood, but these strong effects do not explain the weaker but independent association with birth weight.

Indexed as

Birth WeightCognitionSocial ClassAdolescentAdultChildCohort StudiesEducational StatusFemaleHumansInfant, NewbornIntelligenceLinear ModelsLongitudinal StudiesMaleMathematics

Identifiers

PMID12169505
PMCPMC117769

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.