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Childhood Origins Of Intergenerational Health Mobility In The United States.

ABSTRACT: Policy makers and parents should share a goal that all children have opportunities to thrive, regardless of their circumstances at birth. Studies that focus on socioeconomic measures of opportunities for thriving measure intergenerational mobility, or the extent to which children's outcomes can diverge from those of their parents. We bring this focus to the study of children's health by estimating intergenerational health mobility during early childhood in a national sample. We find that children in families characterized as minorities, those without health insurance, or those with low socioeconomic status experience less upward health mobility and greater downward health mobility. We also show that community characteristics may shape health mobility. For example, children growing up in places with high proportions of uninsured residents are less likely to experience upward health mobility and more likely to experience downward health mobility. These descriptive findings may allow new insights into ways in which children's health can be decoupled from their circumstances at birth.

SUBMITTER: Fletcher J

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7641035 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Childhood Origins Of Intergenerational Health Mobility In The United States.

Fletcher Jason J Jajtner Katie K

Health affairs (Project Hope) 20201001 10

Policy makers and parents should share a goal that all children have opportunities to thrive, regardless of their circumstances at birth. Studies that focus on socioeconomic measures of opportunities for thriving measure intergenerational mobility, or the extent to which children's outcomes can diverge from those of their parents. We bring this focus to the study of children's health by estimating intergenerational health mobility during early childhood in a national sample. We find that childre ...[more]

PMID: 33017243

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Project description:The contemporaneous association between higher socioeconomic position and better health is well established. Life course research has also demonstrated a lasting effect of childhood socioeconomic conditions on adult health and well-being. Yet, little is known about the separate health effects of intergenerational mobility-moving into a different socioeconomic position than one's parents-among early adults in the United States. Most studies on the health implications of mobility rely on cross-sectional datasets, which makes it impossible to differentiate between health selection and social causation effects. In addition, understanding the effects of social mobility on health at a relatively young age has been hampered by the paucity of health measures that reliably predict disease onset. Analysing 4,713 respondents aged 25 to 32 from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health's Waves I and IV, we use diagonal reference models to separately identify the effects of socioeconomic origin and destination, as well as social mobility on allostatic load among individuals in the United States. Using a combined measure of educational and occupational attainment, and accounting for individuals' initial health, we demonstrate that in addition to health gradient among the socially immobile, individuals' socioeconomic origin and destination are equally important for multi-system physiological dysregulation. Short-range upward mobility also has a positive and significant association with health. After mitigating health selection concerns in our observational data, this effect is observed only among those reporting poor health before experiencing social mobility. Our findings move towards the reconciliation of two theoretical perspectives, confirming the positive effect of upward mobility as predicted by the "rags to riches" perspective, while not contradicting potential costs associated with more extensive upward mobility experiences as predicted by the dissociative thesis.

Dataset Information

Childhood Origins Of Intergenerational Health Mobility In The United States.

Publications

Childhood Origins Of Intergenerational Health Mobility In The United States.

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