Multigenerational inequalities of opportunity in health outcomes

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Abstract

This paper studies multigenerational health transmission mechanisms in Australian panel data. Using inequality-of-opportunity (IOP) models, we demonstrate that grandparental socioeconomic status (SES) is an important determinant of personal health, even after controlling for health and SES at the parental level. Our findings hold over a range of health/biomarkers of individuals’ physical and mental well-being and appear to be especially sensitive to educational outcomes on the father’s side. Since ingrained socioeconomic (dis)advantages that persist over multiple generations may be indicative of social class, our results suggest that subtle attitudinal and behavioural characteristics associated with this variable may be a key factor driving health disparities.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12939-024-02144-0.

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Most cited references 80

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Stress, Adaptation, and Disease: Allostasis and Allostatic Load

BRUCE McEWEN (1998)

Adaptation in the face of potentially stressful challenges involves activation of neural, neuroendocrine and neuroendocrine-immune mechanisms. This has been called "allostasis" or "stability through change" by Sterling and Eyer (Fisher S., Reason J. (eds): Handbook of Life Stress, Cognition and Health. J. Wiley Ltd. 1988, p. 631), and allostasis is an essential component of maintaining homeostasis. When these adaptive systems are turned on and turned off again efficiently and not too frequently, the body is able to cope effectively with challenges that it might not otherwise survive. However, there are a number of circumstances in which allostatic systems may either be overstimulated or not perform normally, and this condition has been termed "allostatic load" or the price of adaptation (McEwen and Stellar, Arch. Int. Med. 1993; 153: 2093.). Allostatic load can lead to disease over long periods. Types of allostatic load include (1) frequent activation of allostatic systems; (2) failure to shut off allostatic activity after stress; (3) inadequate response of allostatic systems leading to elevated activity of other, normally counter-regulated allostatic systems after stress. Examples will be given for each type of allostatic load from research pertaining to autonomic, CNS, neuroendocrine, and immune system activity. The relationship of allostatic load to genetic and developmental predispositions to disease is also considered.

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Body Mass Index

Frank Q Nuttall (2015)

The body mass index (BMI) is the metric currently in use for defining anthropometric height/weight characteristics in adults and for classifying (categorizing) them into groups. The common interpretation is that it represents an index of an individual’s fatness. It also is widely used as a risk factor for the development of or the prevalence of several health issues. In addition, it is widely used in determining public health policies.The BMI has been useful in population-based studies by virtue of its wide acceptance in defining specific categories of body mass as a health issue. However, it is increasingly clear that BMI is a rather poor indicator of percent of body fat. Importantly, the BMI also does not capture information on the mass of fat in different body sites. The latter is related not only to untoward health issues but to social issues as well. Lastly, current evidence indicates there is a wide range of BMIs over which mortality risk is modest, and this is age related. All of these issues are discussed in this brief review.

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SF-36 Health Survey Update

John E Ware, xiaolong shen (2000)

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Author and article information

Contributors

Namal N. Balasooriya:

ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5044-7386

n.balasooriya@uq.edu.au

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Int J Equity Health

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Int J Equity Health

Title: International Journal for Equity in Health

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1475-9276

Publication date (Electronic): 10 July 2024

Publication date PMC-release: 10 July 2024

Publication date Collection: 2024

Volume: 23

Electronic Location Identifier: 140

Affiliations

[1 ]Centre for Health Services Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Queensland, UQ Health Sciences Building, RBWH Campus Central, ( https://ror.org/00rqy9422) Fig Tree Dr, Herston, Brisbane, QLD 4006 Australia

[2 ]Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University, ( https://ror.org/02sc3r913) Brisbane, Australia

[3 ]Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Griffith University, ( https://ror.org/02sc3r913) Gold Coast, Australia

Author information

Namal N. Balasooriya http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5044-7386

Nicholas Rohde http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4606-2624

Article

Publisher ID: 2144

DOI: 10.1186/s12939-024-02144-0

PMC ID: 11234677

PubMed ID: 38987776

SO-VID: d0b8627d-65d4-4857-9e7d-91af4e3e8b16

License:

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver ( http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.

History

Date received : 20 October 2022

Date accepted : 3 March 2024

Funding

Funded by: FundRef http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000923, Australian Research Council;

Award ID: ARC DP 1701 00438

Award Recipient : Nicholas Rohde

Custom metadata

ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: d63,i12,multigenerational inequality,inequality of opportunity,health outcomes,social class,health behaviours,children’s health

Data availability:

ScienceOpen disciplines: Health & Social care

Keywords: d63, i12, multigenerational inequality, inequality of opportunity, health outcomes, social class, health behaviours, children’s health

Multigenerational inequalities of opportunity in health outcomes

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Abstract

Supplementary Information

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UCL: UN SDG 10 Reduced Inequalities

Most cited references 80

Stress, Adaptation, and Disease: Allostasis and Allostatic Load

Body Mass Index

SF-36 Health Survey Update

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