Socioeconomic patterns in health behaviours after disease onset

Abstract

Socioeconomic circumstances shape health-related behaviours beginning in childhood, contributing to inequalities in health later in life.1 In the 1958 British birth cohort study,2 behavioural and material factors in early life explained about a third of the excess risk of poor health among adults with low socioeconomic status (SES). In the Young Finns Study,3 early childhood SES established a temporal sequence that distinguished low and high SES groups across the life course: lower fruit and vegetable intake at age 6 years in low SES groups; lower physical activity and higher prevalence of smoking in adolescence; adverse biological changes, evident by early adulthood (eg, reduced insulin sensitivity and higher fasting glucose); and greater risk of chronic conditions, such as obesity, fatty liver disease, and type 2 diabetes by age 48 years.