Department of Social Medicine, National Research Institute for Child Health and Development, Setagaya-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
Center for Well-being and Society, Nihon Fukushi University, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan.
J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2014 Jul;69(7):852-9. doi: 10.1093/gerona/glt189. Epub 2013 Nov 27.
We examined the associations between childhood socioeconomic status and adulthood height with functional limitations in old age.
Data were obtained from the baseline survey of the Japan Gerontological Evaluation Study 2010, a population-based cohort of people aged ≥65 years enrolled from 27 municipalities across Japan (N = 15,499). People aged 65-69, 70-74, 75-79, and ≥80 years experienced the end of World War II when they were aged 0-4, 5-9, 10-14, and ≥15 years, respectively. Subjective socioeconomic status during childhood and current height were obtained by self-report through questionnaire in 2010. Higher-level functional capacity was assessed using a validated questionnaire scale. Poisson regression with robust variance estimator was employed to determine the association between childhood subjective socioeconomic status, height, and functional limitations.
Lower childhood subjective socioeconomic status was consistently associated with higher prevalence rate ratio of limitations in higher-level functional capacity, regardless of age cohort. Height was associated with functional limitation only among the group aged 70-74 years: taller (≥170cm for men and ≥160cm for women) people were 16% less likely to report functional limitation in comparison with shorter (<155 cm for men and <145 cm for women) individuals in the fully adjusted model (prevalence rate ratio: 0.84, 95% confidence interval: 0.74-0.96).
Low childhood subjective socioeconomic status had a robust association with functional limitation regardless of age cohort. In addition, those who lived through World War II before they reached puberty and attained shorter height were more likely to report functional limitations in old age.
我们研究了儿童时期社会经济地位与成年身高对老年功能障碍的关联。
数据来自日本老年评估研究 2010 年的基线调查，这是一项基于人群的、年龄在 65 岁及以上的日本 27 个市的队列研究（N=15499）。65-69 岁、70-74 岁、75-79 岁和≥80 岁的人群在 0-4 岁、5-9 岁、10-14 岁和≥15 岁时经历了第二次世界大战的结束。2010 年通过问卷自我报告获得儿童期主观社会经济地位和当前身高。使用经过验证的问卷量表评估较高水平的功能能力。采用稳健方差估计的泊松回归来确定儿童时期主观社会经济地位、身高与功能障碍之间的关系。
无论年龄队列如何，较低的儿童期主观社会经济地位与较高水平的功能障碍的患病率比值呈正相关。身高仅与 70-74 岁年龄组的功能障碍相关：与身高较矮（男性<155cm，女性<145cm）的个体相比，身高较高（男性≥170cm，女性≥160cm）的个体报告功能障碍的可能性低 16%（调整后的患病率比值：0.84，95%置信区间：0.74-0.96）。
无论年龄队列如何，较低的儿童主观社会经济地位与功能障碍有很强的关联。此外，那些在青春期前经历过二战且身高较矮的人在老年时更容易报告功能障碍。
