ArticleBMJ open2013
Does childhood adversity account for poorer mental and physical health in second-generation Irish people living in Britain? Birth cohort study from Britain (NCDS).
Article in BMJ open, 2013. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Where Are the Irish in Research on Ethnic Health Inequalities in Britain? A State-Of-The-Art Literature Review.Sociology of health & illness · 2025Review
- Article
- Toward a conceptual framework of health and its operational definition: an application in the 1958 British birth cohort.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Theory driven analysis of social class and health outcomes using UK nationally representative longitudinal data.International journal for equity in health · 2020Article
- Welfare regimes modify the association of disadvantaged adult-life socioeconomic circumstances with self-rated health in old age.International journal of epidemiology · 2019Article
- Depression and cause-specific mortality in an ethnically diverse cohort from the UK: 8-year prospective study.Psychological medicine · 2019Article
- Ethnic density and other neighbourhood associations for mortality in severe mental illness: a retrospective cohort study with multi-level analysis from an urbanised and ethnically diverse location in the UK.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2019Article
- Type 2 diabetes mellitus in people with severe mental illness: inequalities by ethnicity and age. Cross-sectional analysis of 588 408 records from the UK.Diabetic medicine : a journal of the British Diabetic Association · 2017Article
- Childhood hyperactivity and mood problems at mid-life: evidence from a prospective birth cohort.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2017Article
- Baby Boomers and Birth Certificates: Early-Life Socioeconomic Status and Cancer Risk in Adulthood.Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology · 2017Article
- Self Reported Childhood Difficulties, Adult Multimorbidity and Allostatic Load. A Cross-Sectional Analysis of the Norwegian HUNT Study.PloS one · 2015Article
- Does social disadvantage over the life-course account for alcohol and tobacco use in Irish people? Birth cohort study.European journal of public health · 2014Article
- Born into adversity: psychological distress in two birth cohorts of second-generation Irish children growing up in Britain.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectivesWorldwide, the Irish diaspora experience elevated mortality and morbidity across generations, not accounted for through socioeconomic position. The main objective of the present study was to assess if childhood disadvantage accounts for poorer mental and physical health in adulthood, in second-generation Irish people.
designAnalysis of prospectively collected birth cohort data, with participants followed to midlife.
settingEngland, Scotland and Wales.
participantsApproximately 17 000 babies born in a single week in 1958. Six per cent of the cohort were of second-generation Irish descent. OUTCOMES: Primary outcomes were common mental disorders assessed at age 44/45 and self-rated health at age 42. Secondary outcomes were those assessed at ages 23 and 33.
resultsRelative to the rest of the cohort, second-generation Irish children grew up in marked material and social disadvantage, which tracked into early adulthood. By midlife, parity was reached between second-generation Irish cohort members and the rest of the sample on most disadvantage indicators. At age 23, Irish cohort members were more likely to screen positive for common mental disorders (OR 1.44; 95% CI 1.06 to 1.94). This had reduced slightly by midlife (OR 1.27; 95% CI 0.96 to 1.69). Although at age 23 second-generation cohort members were just as likely to report poorer self-rated health (OR 1.06; 95% CI 0.79 to 1.43), by midlife this difference had increased (OR 1.25; 95% CI 0.98 to 1.60). Adjustment for childhood and early adulthood adversity fully attenuated differences in adult health disadvantages.
conclusionsSocial and material disadvantage experienced in childhood continues to have long-range adverse effects on physical and mental health at midlife, in second-generation Irish cohort members. This suggests important mechanisms over the life-course, which may have important policy implications in the settlement of migrant families.
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Registered trials
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.