The Relationship between Adverse Family Experiences during Childhood and Self-rated Health Outcome in Adulthood

Abstract

ABSTRACT Although there is increasing evidence of a link between adverse family experiences (AFEs) and long-term health outcomes, few studies have investigated the role of educational attainment in the relationship between AFEs and adult health. The data of this study comes from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). Here, 15,359 samples were analyzed. Ordered logistic regression with interaction terms was used to explore the moderating effect of education on the relationship between AFEs in childhood and adult self-rated health. The self-rated health scores of people with childhood AFEs were significantly lower than of those without them, particularly in the categories of “parents divorced,” “parent died,” “physical abuse,” “domestic conflict,” “parental bias,” “physical and emotional neglect,” “parental physical illness,” ‘parental mental illness,” “family economic hardship,” “experience of starvation,” “lived in an insecure neighborhood,” and “lived in an unhygienic community.” Increases in education level reduced the adverse effects of parental bias and neglect in childhood, but this did not eliminate the negative effect of community’s environment on adult health. This study highlighted the role of the level of education in eliminating health disparities, which can reduce the adverse effects of AFEs on health in adulthood.