Childhood Economic Resources and Mature Adult Health

项目总结 最近的研究提供了新的证据，表明儿童的经济劣势会损害儿童的健康 上了年纪的人。尽管有宝贵的贡献，但大多数美国人对这一挑衅性主题的研究都依赖于 回顾过去几十年的童年资源。即使有预期的数据，这也是 文学在很大程度上使用了童年经济资源的衡量标准，而这些衡量标准并没有上升到国际领先水平 标准。我们通过更充分地吸收国际领先的研究成果，在关键方面改进了过去的研究。 将收入衡量标准纳入健康研究。我们将使用收入动态的小组研究 (PSID)，一项具有全国代表性的大型研究，前瞻性地将儿童经济资源衡量为 以及成年后的各种健康状况。当我们利用PSID的关键优势时 与国际对等档案(CNEF)合并：全面、更高质量的前景 衡量儿童收入，包括税收和转移。我们将战略性地利用最新的 PSID-Cnef的浪潮包括20世纪70年代和80年代的更大样本的儿童，他们已经达到 到2017年，年龄在40-63岁之间。我们的项目有三个具体目标。首先，我们将提供最严格的评估， 儿童经济资源与成人健康结果之间关系的日期。更多 准确地说，我们的创新将展示(A)收入中潜在的非线性和关键门槛- 健康关系；。(B)哪些成年健康指标受童年收入影响最大；及。 (C)哪些经济资源要素对成年人的健康最为关键。第二，我们将评估 儿童的相对或绝对收入对成年后的健康最为重要。第三，我们将 调查成人社会经济成就和成人健康行为作为中介途径的作用。 最后，我们将为复制构建一个公共的代码基础设施，并鼓励更好的度量 在使用相同或其他数据集的研究中对儿童经济资源的研究。通过整合领先的 收入衡量标准，并利用关于预期测量的儿童的高质量数据 老年人的收入和各种各样的健康结果，这个项目有可能使 以及突出的贡献。我们的目标是提高对儿童经济之间关系的理解 资源和成熟的成年人健康。更广泛地说，我们将在社会科学的几个领域做出贡献 健康、健康老龄化和健康差距。通过做出这些贡献，我们将推进这些领域的 已经对公共政策有价值的知识。具体地说，我们的研究可以为更有效的目标定位提供信息 干预措施--在儿童收入分配的哪个点上，通过什么调解途径-- 提高成年成年人健康水平。我们的研究也可以指导健康从业者更可靠和更具预测性 对成年后特定健康问题的早期预警信号。

PROJECT SUMMARY Recent research provides novel evidence that childhood economic disadvantage undermines health among older adults. Despite valuable contributions, most US-based research on this provocative theme has relied on retrospective recollections of childhood resources from decades in the past. Even with prospective data, this literature largely uses measures of childhood economic resources that do not rise to leading international standards. We improve upon past research in critical ways by more fully incorporating leading international standards in income measurement into the study of health. We will use the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), a large, nationally representative study that prospectively measures childhood economic resources as well as a variety of health outcomes in mature adulthood. We capitalize on a pivotal strength of the PSID when merged with the Cross-National Equivalent File (CNEF): comprehensive and higher quality prospective measures of childhood income inclusive of taxes and transfers. We will strategically exploit the most recent waves of the PSID-CNEF to include a larger sample of children from the 1970s and 1980s who have reached ages 40-63 by 2017. Our project has three specific aims. First, we will provide the most rigorous assessment to date of the relationship between childhood economic resources and mature adult health outcomes. More precisely, our innovations will demonstrate (a) potential nonlinearities and critical thresholds in the income- health relationship; (b) which measures of mature adult health are most influenced by childhood income; and (c) which elements of economic resources are most crucial to mature adult health. Second, we will assess whether relative or absolute childhood income is most important to mature adult health. Third, we will investigate the role of adult socio-economic attainment and adult health behaviors as mediating pathways. Finally, we will build a public good infrastructure of code for replication and to encourage better measurement of childhood economic resources in studies using the same or other datasets. By incorporating leading standards in income measurement, and utilizing higher quality data on prospectively measured childhood income and a wide variety of health outcomes among older adults, this project has the potential to make novel and salient contributions. We aim to improve understanding of the relationship between childhood economic resources and mature adult health. More generally, we will contribute to several fields in the social science of health, healthy aging, and health disparities. By making these contributions, we will advance these fields’ already valuable knowledge for public policy. Specifically, our research can inform more effective targeting of interventions – at which points in the childhood income distribution and through which mediating pathways – to improve mature adult health. Our research can also guide health practitioners with more reliable and predictive early warning signals for specific health problems in mature adulthood.