Childhood adversity and adult wellbeing

About the research

Full project title: Prospective associations between childhood environment and adult mental wellbeing

This project explored associations between childhood social environment and adult mental wellbeing to examine whether the relationship between the two has changed across different generations. To do this it harmonised measures of socio-economic position in childhood, and mental wellbeing in middle age, across four CLOSER studies.

A new harmonised dataset is being produced to help researchers explore how childhood socio-economic status is linked to adult wellbeing. The project also produced guidance describing the available data on childhood adversity in four CLOSER studies.

Research lead

Mai Stafford (The Health Foundation)

Studies used

• 1946 MRC National Survey of Health and Development
• 1958 National Child Development Study
• 1970 British Cohort Study
• Hertfordshire Cohort Study (used in the published paper only)

Research outputs

• Harmonised datasets containing data from three studies on childhood material and psychosocial adversity variables are available to download from the UK Data Service. A user guide and syntax are also provided.

Press releases and blogs

• Mental wellbeing of Generation X directly linked to childhood background, new study finds

Paper

• Wood N, Bann D, Hardy R, et al. Childhood socioeconomic position and adult mental wellbeing: Evidence from four British birth cohort studies. PLoS One. 2017;12(10):e0185798. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0185798

CLOSER seminar: Cross cohort analysis of childhood environment and adult mental wellbeing – Natasha Wood

• Download the presentation slides [PDF] 

Read about other CLOSER data harmonisation projects.