ArticleSocial science & medicine (1982)2014
Survival of offspring who experience early parental death: early life conditions and later-life mortality.
Article in Social science & medicine (1982), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 30 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
30 citing papers in PubMed, 65 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk factors for maladaptive grief and posttraumatic stress in children and adolescents following loss: a systematic review.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Review
- Adverse Childhood Experiences and Mortality at Old Age: A Longitudinal Study from the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study.Journal of child & adolescent trauma · 2026Article
- Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Early-life paternal relationships predict adult female survival in wild baboons.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Familial Loss of a Loved One and Biological Aging: NIMHD Social Epigenomics Program.JAMA network open · 2024Article
- The embodiment of parental death in early life through accelerated epigenetic aging: Implications for understanding how parental death before 18 shapes age-related health risk among older adults.SSM - population health · 2024Article
- Parental Death Across the Life Course, Social Isolation, and Health in Later Life: Racial/Ethnic Disadvantage in the U.S.Social forces; a scientific medium of social study and interpretation · 2023Article
- Early learning difficulties, childhood stress, race, and risk of cognitive impairment among US adults over age 50: A cross-sectional analysis.Health science reports · 2023Article
- Long-run intergenerational health benefits of women empowerment: Evidence from suffrage movements in the US.Health economics · 2023Article
- Mortality in Women across theCells · 2023Article
- Article
- Bereavement in childhood and young adulthood and the risk of atrial fibrillation: a population-based cohort study from Denmark and Sweden.BMC medicine · 2023Article
- Family Ties at End-of-Life: Characteristics of Nursing Home Decedents With and Without Family.Palliative medicine reports · 2023Article
- Multiple Family Member Deaths and Cardiometabolic Health among Black and White Older Adults.Journal of health and social behavior · 2022Article
- Death of a Parent and the Risk of Ischemic Heart Disease and Stroke in Denmark and Sweden.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- Parental Death and Cognitive Impairment: An Examination by Gender and Race-Ethnicity.The journals of gerontology. Series B, Psychological sciences and social sciences · 2022Article
- Early life adversity, reproductive history and breast cancer risk.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2022Article
- Was Cinderella just a fairy tale? Survival differences between stepchildren and their half-siblings.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2021Article
- Death of a parent during childhood and blood pressure in youth: a population-based cohort study of Swedish men.BMJ open · 2021Article
- Parental death in childhood and pathways to increased mortality across the life course in Stockholm, Sweden: A cohort study.PLoS medicine · 2021Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
We examine the influences of a set of early life conditions (ELCs) on all-cause and cause-specific mortality among elderly individuals, with special attention to one of the most dramatic early events in a child's, adolescent's, or even young adult's life, the death of a parent. The foremost question is, once controlling for prevailing (and potentially confounding) conditions early in life (family history of longevity, paternal characteristics (SES, age at time of birth, sibship size, and religious affiliation)), is a parental death associated with enduring mortality risks after age 65? The years following parental death may initiate new circumstances through which the adverse effects of paternal death operate. Here we consider the offspring's marital status (whether married; whether and when widowed), adult socioeconomic status, fertility, and later life health status. Adult health status is based on the Charlson Co-Morbidity Index, a construct that summarizes nearly all serious illnesses afflicting older individuals that relies on Medicare data. The data are based on linkages between the Utah Population Database and Medicare claims that hold medical diagnoses data. We show that offspring whose parents died when they were children, but especially when they were adolescents/young adults, have modest but significant mortality risks after age 65. What are striking are the weak mediating influences of later-life comorbidities, marital status, fertility and adult socioeconomic status since controls for these do little to alter the overall association. No beneficial effects of the surviving parent's remarriage were detected. Overall, we show the persistence of the effects of early life loss on later-life mortality and indicate the difficulties in addressing challenges at young ages.
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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.