ArticlePLoS medicine2014
Mortality after parental death in childhood: a nationwide cohort study from three Nordic countries.
Article in PLoS medicine, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 50 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
50 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 139 citations in OpenAlex.
- A systematic review of controlled studies of suicidal and self-harming behaviours in adolescents following bereavement by suicide.PloS one · 2021Pooled it
- When a parent dies - a systematic review of the effects of support programs for parentally bereaved children and their caregivers.BMC palliative care · 2017Pooled it
- The Aarhus bereavement study (TABstudy).European journal of epidemiology · 2026Article
- Familial hypercholesterolaemia in children and adolescents: a European Atherosclerosis Society consensus statement.European heart journal · 2026Article
- Association of parental death and separation with child mortality in India.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Using the Person-based Approach to plan and develop an intervention for healthcare professionals to facilitate family-centred conversations when an adult patient has a serious illness.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Parental loss: prevalence estimates and mental health impacts from the second Australian Child and Adolescent Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing.Australian journal of psychology · 2026Article
- 'I'm tired of justifying why my life has stopped': A qualitative analysis of the experiences and support needs of young people caring at the end of life and into bereavement.Palliative care and social practice · 2026Article
- Maternal Cancer Mortality and Orphanhood: A Neglected Global Health and Equity Challenge.Annals of global health · 2026Review
- Parental Mental Disorders and Offspring Mortality up to Middle Age.JAMA psychiatry · 2025Article
- Model-based trends in the estimated number of children affected by maternal cancer diagnosis or death in Finland in 1968-2022.Acta oncologica (Stockholm, Sweden) · 2025Article
- Adverse childhood experiences and the risk of endometriosis-a nationwide cohort study.Human reproduction (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Reducing childhood mortality extends mothers' lives.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Teachers as caregivers of grieving children in school in the post-COVID-19 era: using the self-determination theory to conceptualize teachers' needs when supporting grieving children's mental health.Frontiers in pediatrics · 2024Article
- Should Familial Hypercholesterolaemia Be Included in the UK Newborn Whole Genome Sequencing Programme?Current atherosclerosis reports · 2023Review
- Causes of death in individuals exposed to spousal, parental, and child suicide: a nationwide population-based cohort comparison study.European journal of epidemiology · 2023Article
- Measuring bereavement prevalence in a complex sampling survey: the 2019 Georgia Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS).BMC medical research methodology · 2023Article
- Self-Compassion for Caregivers of Children in Parentally Bereaved Families: A Theoretical Model and Intervention Example.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2023Review
- Bereavement in childhood and young adulthood and the risk of atrial fibrillation: a population-based cohort study from Denmark and Sweden.BMC medicine · 2023Article
- Who should support grieving children in school? Applying Winnicott's viewpoint to conceptualize the dyadic roles of teachers and school mental-health professionals in the context of pediatric grief.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 4 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundBereavement by spousal death and child death in adulthood has been shown to lead to an increased risk of mortality. Maternal death in infancy or parental death in early childhood may have an impact on mortality but evidence has been limited to short-term or selected causes of death. Little is known about long-term or cause-specific mortality after parental death in childhood. METHODS AND
findingsThis cohort study included all persons born in Denmark from 1968 to 2008 (n = 2,789,807) and in Sweden from 1973 to 2006 (n = 3,380,301), and a random sample of 89.3% of all born in Finland from 1987 to 2007 (n = 1,131,905). A total of 189,094 persons were included in the exposed cohort when they lost a parent before 18 years old. Log-linear Poisson regression was used to estimate mortality rate ratio (MRR). Parental death was associated with a 50% increased all-cause mortality (MRR = 1.50, 95% CI 1.43-1.58). The risks were increased for most specific cause groups and the highest MRRs were observed when the cause of child death and the cause of parental death were in the same category. Parental unnatural death was associated with a higher mortality risk (MRR = 1.84, 95% CI 1.71-2.00) than parental natural death (MRR = 1.33, 95% CI 1.24-1.41). The magnitude of the associations varied according to type of death and age at bereavement over different follow-up periods. The main limitation of the study is the lack of data on post-bereavement information on the quality of the parent-child relationship, lifestyles, and common physical environment.
conclusionsParental death in childhood or adolescence is associated with increased all-cause mortality into early adulthood. Since an increased mortality reflects both genetic susceptibility and long-term impacts of parental death on health and social well-being, our findings have implications in clinical responses and public health strategies. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary.
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