ArticleIntelligence2017
Childhood IQ and survival to 79: Follow-up of 94% of the Scottish Mental Survey 1947.
Article in Intelligence, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 24 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled 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.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
24 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- State care in childhood and adult mortality: a systematic review and meta-analysis of prospective cohort studies.The Lancet. Public health · 2022Pooled it
- Short-Term and Long-Term Mating Strategies Show Distinct Patterns of Attraction to Dominance and Prestige.Social psychological and personality science · 2026Article
- Electrophysiological resting-state signatures link polygenic scores to general intelligence.Scientific reports · 2025Observational
- Adverse Childhood Experiences, Neurocognitive Functions, and Long-Term Mortality Risk.JAMA network open · 2025Article
- Article
- Mitochondrial complex I density is associated with IQ and cognition in cognitively healthy adults: an in vivo [EJNMMI research · 2024Article
- Childhood cognitive ability and self-harm and suicide in later life.SSM - population health · 2024Article
- Childhood cognitive ability and self-harm and suicide in later life.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2023Article
- An epigenetic predictor of death captures multi-modal measures of brain health.Molecular psychiatry · 2021Article
- Intelligence, health and death.Nature human behaviour · 2021Review
- Mitochondrial Functioning and the Relations among Health, Cognition, and Aging: Where Cell Biology Meets Cognitive Science.International journal of molecular sciences · 2021Review
- Observational
- Season of birth and sugary beverages are predictors of Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices Scores in adolescents.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- Association of Childhood Psychomotor Coordination With Survival Up to 6 Decades Later.JAMA network open · 2020Observational
- Childhood intelligence attenuates the association between biological ageing and health outcomes in later life.Translational psychiatry · 2019Article
- What genome-wide association studies reveal about the association between intelligence and physical health, illness, and mortality.Current opinion in psychology · 2019Review
- Cognitive ability and risk of death from lower respiratory tract infection: findings from UK Biobank.Scientific reports · 2019Article
- Navigating the landscape of non-health administrative data in Scotland: A researcher's narrative.Wellcome open research · 2019Article
- Cognitive function in adolescence and the risk for premature diabetes and cardiovascular mortality in adulthood.Cardiovascular diabetology · 2018Article
- Plasma 25-Hydroxy Vitamin D Is Not Associated with Either Cognitive Function or Academic Performance in Adolescents.Nutrients · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo extend previous literature that suggests higher IQ in youth is associated with living longer. Previous studies have been unable to assess reliably whether the effect differs across sexes and ages of death, and whether the effect is graded across different levels of IQ.
methodsWe test IQ-survival associations in 94% of the near-entire population born in Scotland in 1936 who took an IQ test at age 11 (n = 70,805) and were traced in a 68-year follow-up.
resultsHigher IQ at age 11 years was associated with a lower risk of death (HR = 0.80, 95% CI = 0.79, 0.81). The decline in risk across categories of IQ scores was graded across the full range with the effect slightly stronger in women (HR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.77, 0.80) than in men (HR = 0.82, 95% CI = 0.81, 0.84). Higher IQ had a significantly stronger association with death before and including age 65 (HR = 0.76, 95% CI = 0.74, 0.77) than in those participants who died at an older age (HR = 0.79, 95% CI = 0.78, 0.80).
conclusionsHigher childhood IQ is associated with lower risk of all-cause mortality in both men and women. This is the only near-entire population study to date that examines the association between childhood IQ and mortality across most of the human life course.
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What OpenQuestion holds
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.