Social, Familial and Psychological Risk Factors for Endocrine, Nutritional and Metabolic Disorders in Childhood and Early Adulthood: a Birth Cohort Study Using the Danish Registry System

Abstract

Research studies have identified associations between a range of social, familial and psychological risk factor and physical health. However, there are many methodological limitations in such studies (e.g. self-reported health status, retrospective recall of adverse events, and lack of control for possible heritability effects). The current study seeks to assess the effect of a range of social and psychosocial risk factors on a diagnosis of any endocrine, nutritional, and metabolic (ENM) disorders (ICD-10 E00–99) using linked Danish registry data from a large birth cohort. Data linkage. A national birth cohort of the Danish population born in 1984 was used in the current study (n = 54,458). Psychosocial risk factors including parental history of diagnosis of an ENM disorder, advanced parental age, gender, urban dwelling, economic deprivation, family dissolution and childhood adversity (child in care) were used to predict any ENM diagnosis. Bivariate associations showed that all variables, except advanced paternal age, were significantly associated with ENM diagnosis. When the variables were entered into a multivariate binary logistic regression analysis childhood adversity (child in care) was the strongest predictor of diagnosis (OR = 2.36) followed by maternal diagnosis of an endocrine disorder (OR = 1.74) and advanced maternal age (OR = 1.69). Results suggest that childhood adversity is the dominant factor in the prediction of an ENM diagnosis. The current study extends the literature conducted on adult populations by demonstrating that early adverse experiences are associated with poor or poorer health outcomes in young adulthood.