Associations of grandparental schooling with adult grandchildren's health status, smoking, and obesity.

ABSTRACT: Despite persistent schooling-related health disparities in the United States, little is known about the multigenerational effects of schooling on adult health. As expected lifespans increase, direct influences of grandparental schooling on grandchildren's health may become increasingly important. We used multigenerational data spanning 41 years from a national sample of US families to investigate associations of grandparents' educational attainment with global health status, smoking, and obesity in their grandchildren who were aged 25-55 years in 2009. We estimated total effects of grandparental schooling and, by using marginal structural models, we estimated controlled direct effects that were independent of parents' and participants' schooling. Among whites, lower levels of grandparental

SUBMITTER: Le-Scherban F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4143078 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature