Li Baojing, Liu Can, Almquist Ylva B, Berg Lisa
Department of Public Health Sciences, Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS), Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden.
Soc Psychiatry Psychiatr Epidemiol. 2025 Apr 29. doi: 10.1007/s00127-025-02918-z.
There is a lack of multigenerational research on the extent to which mental health is informed by transmission of multiple disadvantages across previous generations. This study aims to investigate how family socioeconomic and psychosocial disadvantages cluster and transition over grandparental and parental generations, and how this might be associated with grandchild psychiatric disorders.
We utilized a cohort study with data following three generations from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study, including 11,299 individuals born in 1953 (parental generation), their 22,598 parents (grandparental generation), and 24,707 adult children (grandchild generation). Family disadvantages as exposures were measured across two periods- grandparental adulthood (parental childhood) and parental adulthood (grandchild childhood), and included socioeconomic (i.e., low income, non-employment, overcrowding, and single parenthood) and psychosocial aspects (i.e., single parenthood, teenage motherhood, psychiatric disorders, and criminality of father). Psychiatric disorders in the adult grandchildren as outcome were defined by hospitalizations with a main or contributing diagnosis reflecting mental and behavioral disorders from age 18 until 2019.
Multiple disadvantages within the grandparental and parental generations, respectively, predicted higher probabilities of grandchild psychiatric disorders. Multigenerational transmission is evident in that grandchildren with combinations of grandparental socioeconomic disadvantages and parental psychosocial disadvantages had comparably high probabilities of psychiatric disorders. Importantly, improved socioeconomic and psychosocial circumstances across previous generations predicted comparably low probabilities of grandchild psychiatric disorders.
Mental health of future generations is informed by the transmission of multiple disadvantages across previous generations, and the transition from grandparental socioeconomic disadvantages into parental psychosocial disadvantages is particularly important.
关于心理健康在多大程度上受到前几代人多种不利因素传递的影响，目前缺乏多代研究。本研究旨在调查家庭社会经济和心理社会不利因素如何在祖父母辈和父母辈中聚集和转变，以及这与孙辈精神疾病之间可能存在的关联。
我们采用了一项队列研究，数据来自斯德哥尔摩出生队列多代研究中的三代人，包括1953年出生的11299人（父母辈）、他们的22598名父母（祖父母辈）以及24707名成年子女（孙辈）。作为暴露因素的家庭不利因素在两个时期进行测量——祖父母成年期（父母童年期）和父母成年期（孙辈童年期），包括社会经济方面（即低收入、无业、过度拥挤和单亲家庭）和心理社会方面（即单亲家庭、少女母亲、精神疾病和父亲犯罪）。成年孙辈的精神疾病作为结局，通过18岁至2019年期间以反映精神和行为障碍为主诊断或辅助诊断的住院情况来定义。
祖父母辈和父母辈各自的多种不利因素分别预测了孙辈患精神疾病的较高概率。多代传递是明显的，即祖父母辈社会经济不利因素和父母辈心理社会不利因素相结合的孙辈患精神疾病的概率相当高。重要的是，前几代人社会经济和心理社会状况的改善预示着孙辈患精神疾病的概率相对较低。
后代的心理健康受到前几代人多种不利因素传递的影响，从祖父母辈社会经济不利因素向父母辈心理社会不利因素的转变尤为重要。
