Early life effects across the life course: The impact of individually defined exogenous measures of disease exposure on mortality by sex in 19th- and 20th-century Southern Sweden

Fetal health stagnation: Have health conditions in utero improved in the United States and Western and Northern Europe over the past 150 years?

“…If this is true, then improving fetal health cannot explain cohort improvements in life expectancy and mortality risk age profiles or gains in human capital over the twentieth century (Almond and Currie, 2011;Arora, 2013). These cohort effects may have been driven by the reduction in infant and childhood scarring from diseases and undernutrition (Crimmins and Finch, 2006;Hatton, 2014;Quaranta, 2014).…”

Early-life disease exposure and associations with adult survival, cause of death, and reproductive success in preindustrial humans

“…There may also be changes in the factors that influence mortality in different parts of the life course, such that the relative importance of scarring and selection may vary with age (43) and the effects of early adversity may be short-lived, or be negligible in comparison with events that occur in adult life (39). A study using data from Sweden, collected 1813-1968 and calculating early-life disease risk based on neonatal mortality rates, showed that effects of exposure on mortality varied with age: Individuals born during times of higher neonatal mortality rates showed higher mortality initially but lower mortality in later life (44). These results suggest initial scarring effects of disease at younger ages, followed by a strengthening influence of acquired immunity and/or selection of robust individuals at later ages.…”

Survival and its predictors from age 75 to 85 in men and women belonging to cohorts with marked survival differences to age 75: a comparative study in three Nordic populations

“…Causes acting at a particular point of time suggest that period effects are dominant, whereas causes clustered to specific generations may relate to cohort effects [23]. One might suggest that the effects of both cohort and period remain in the background, leading to cumulative life course impairment and morbidity and selective mortality over the life course from childhood to old age [7,44,45]. According to the results of a Danish study, cohort effects on the mortality of the oldest Danes played a significant but minor role compared to period effects.…”

“…It can, therefore, be assumed that part of the heterogeneity in the findings of research applying multiple regression analysis is due to the above-described issues in statistical analyses. The selection of people to a longevity trajectory is a complex process calling for a multisystems approach [24,48] and a life course perspective in research [44,45], with an emphasis on differences related to age, cohort, period, and sex, and including genetic, biological, medical, psychological, and social interpretations [24,49].…”