Lifecourse Development, Psychosocial Function & Cardiovascular Disorder

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DESCRIPTION (adapted from investigator's abstract): The central purpose of this proposal is to examine the lifecourse socioeconomic patterning of aspects of psychosocial functioning in adulthood. The proposed study will take advantage of a unique opportunity to link information on a very broad array of measures of psychosocial functioning, and information on socioeconomic conditions in childhood, family environment at age 10, education, and adult occupation and income. For the purposes of this proposal, the general term "psychosocial functioning" will be used to refer to a range of beliefs, attitudes, emotions, negative affect and psychological states. More specifically, "psychosocial functioning" in this project refers to beliefs such as self esteem, personal uncertainty, and sense of coherence; attitudes such as cynical hostility; negative affect such as depression, vital exhaustion, and hopelessness; emotions such as anger; as well as other important indicators of psychosocial functioning including perceptions of job stress, Type A behavior ways of coping, alexithymia and social relations. The investigators propose to study the important links between psychosocial functioning and adult health in four principal areas: (1) the effects of different socioeconomic transitions from childhood to adulthood on a variety of indicators of adult psychosocial functioning; (2) socioeconomic predictors of changes in psychosocial functioning over 11 years; (3) the effects of low birthweight and indicators of in-utero and childhood growth retardation on adult psychosocial functioning; and (4) the extent to which psychosocial functioning mediates the association between low socioeconomic position and morbidity and mortality. Main predictors will include childhood to adult socioeconomic pathways; early childhood family environment; changes in adult income, occupation, and employment; birthweight and indicators of growth through adolescence. Main outcomes will include a variety of indicators of adult "psychosocial function" and the potential clustering of these indicators. These include self-esteem, depression, personal uncertainty, hopelessness, ways of coping, perceptions of job stress, cynical hostility, sense of coherence, anger, type A behavior, vital exhaustion, alexithymia and social network/relations.