Stem Cell Transplantation Laboratory, Ningbo First Hospital, Ningbo, China.
Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
BMC Public Health. 2023 Jan 31;23(1):209. doi: 10.1186/s12889-023-15145-5.
Early life in-utero can have long-term influence on the mental health status of individuals in adulthood, such as depression. Age, gender, socio-economic status, education, and geography are demographic factors shown to be particularly vulnerable towards the development of depressive symptoms. In addition, climate risks on depression include sunlight, rain, and temperature. However, whether climate factors in early life have a long-term influence on depression related to demographic vulnerability remains unknown. Here, the present study explored the association between birth seasonality and adulthood depressive symptoms.
We employed data from the project of Chinese Labour-forces Dynamic Survey (CLDS) 2016, containing the epidemiological data of depressive symptoms with a probability proportional to size cluster and random cluster sampling method in 29 provinces of China. A final sample size of 16,185 participants was included. Birth seasonality included spring (March, April, and May), summer (June, July, and August), autumn (September, October, and November), and winter (December, January, and February).
We found that born in Autumn peaked lowest rate of having depressive symptoms (16.8%) and born in Summer (vs. Autumn) had a significant higher ratio (OR = 1.14, 95%CI = 1.02, 1.29) when controlling for demographic variables. In addition, demographic odds ratio of having depressive symptoms differed between people born in different seasons, particular for age and geography.
Our findings suggest that birth seasonality influences the sensitive link of depressive symptoms with age and geography. It implicates early life climate environment may play a role in the development of adulthood depressive symptoms.
个体在子宫内的早期生活可能对其成年后的心理健康状况产生长期影响，例如抑郁。年龄、性别、社会经济地位、教育程度和地理位置等人口统计学因素被证明特别容易出现抑郁症状。此外，气候对抑郁的影响因素包括阳光、雨水和温度。然而，早期生活中的气候因素是否对与人口统计学脆弱性相关的抑郁有长期影响尚不清楚。在这里，本研究探讨了出生季节性与成年期抑郁症状之间的关系。
我们使用了中国劳动力动态调查（CLDS）2016 年的数据，该数据采用与规模成比例的概率抽样和随机聚类抽样方法，包含了中国 29 个省份的抑郁症状的流行病学数据。最终纳入了 16185 名参与者。出生季节性包括春季（3 月、4 月和 5 月）、夏季（6 月、7 月和 8 月）、秋季（9 月、10 月和 11 月）和冬季（12 月、1 月和 2 月）。
我们发现，秋季出生的人患抑郁症状的比例最低（16.8%），而夏季出生的人（与秋季相比）的比例明显更高（OR=1.14，95%CI=1.02，1.29），同时控制了人口统计学变量。此外，出生季节对抑郁症状的人口统计学比值在不同季节出生的人群中存在差异，特别是在年龄和地理位置方面。
我们的研究结果表明，出生季节性影响了抑郁症状与年龄和地理位置的敏感联系。这表明早期生活的气候环境可能在成年期抑郁症状的发展中起作用。
