Mensuration, Mendel, and a 19th century public health justification for US imperialism

Abstract

Measurement is a key issue in epidemiology and rightly receives considerable attention in most textbooks. In this issue of the IJE many of the key issues regarding measurement get an outing. A first concern is with validity of measurement and this might be a particular issue with respect to somewhat fuzzy categories such as socioeconomic position. Laura Kauhanen et al. revisit the association of childhood social circumstances with mortality and morbidity in middle age in the Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease (KIHD) study. Many studies have found that deprivation in childhood is related to increased cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk in later life but KIHD was an exception with one of Kauhanens current co-authors having shown that childhood social conditions as reported in adulthood were not independently associated with CVD risk. With longer follow-up they replicate the earlier null finding with adulthood recall of childhood social circumstances but show considerably more evidence of increased risk of CVD when childhood conditions were indexed by historical data from school health records. Adulthood recall of childhood social circumstances may simply be too inaccurate to demonstrate an effect in this context. (excerpt)