National Child Development Survey Research Articles

Physical activity during early life and the risk of all-cause mortality in midlife: findings from a birth cohort study.

The objective of this study was to examine the association between physical activity during childhood and adolescence and the risk of all-cause mortality in midlife. We analyzed data from a birth cohort (The 1958 National Child Development Survey), including births in England, Wales and Scotland. Physical activity was assessed using questionnaires at ages 7, 11 and 16. Death certificates defined all-cause mortality. Cumulative exposure, sensitive and critical periods, and physical activity trajectory from childhood to adolescence were tested using multivariate Cox proportional hazard models. The sweep the death was confirmed was defined as the time event. From age 23 to 55, 8.9% of participants (n = 9398) died. Physical activity in childhood and adolescence affected the risk of all-cause mortality in midlife. In men, physical activity at ages 11 [hazard ratio (HR): 0.77; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.60-0.98] and 16 (HR: 0.60; 95% CI: 0.46-0.78) was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality. In women, physical activity at age 16 (HR: 0.68; 95% CI: 0.48-0.95) was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality. Physical activity in adolescence eliminated the risk of all-cause mortality associated with physical inactivity in adulthood in women. Physical activity during childhood and adolescence was associated with reduced risk of all-cause mortality with different effects by sex.

“O Youth and Beauty:” Children's looks and children's cognitive development

We use data from the 11 waves of the U.S. Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development 1991–2005, following children from ages 6 months through 15 years. Observers rated videos of them, obtaining measures of looks at each age. Given their family income, parents’ education, race/ethnicity, and gender, being better-looking raised subsequent changes objective learning outcomes. The gains imply a long-run impact on cognitive achievement of about 0.04 standard deviations per standard deviation of differences in looks. Similarly specified models describing changes in reading and arithmetic scores at ages 7, 11 and 16 in the U.K. National Child Development Survey 1958 cohort show larger effects, 0.20 standard deviations. The extra gains persist when instrumenting children's looks by their mother's looks, and do not work through measures of teachers’ reports of closeness to children, mothers’ reports of children's behavior, their victimization by bullies, or self-confidence. Results from the U.K. data show that greater childhood beauty raises educational attainment both directly and indirectly, through impacts on test scores, thus contributing to higher adult earnings.

Impact of Social Class Background on General Cognitive Ability

Theorists and researchers have been discussing the relationship between social class background and differences observed in cognitive ability test points of children from lower social class families and their middle or upper SES peers. It has been discussed that for a more detailed understanding of these cognitive inequalities, it appears necessary to move beyond boundaries of psychology and consider sociological conditions or contexts as well. It has been asserted that social class background characteristics affect general cognitive ability over time. The present study introduces research exploring the impact of social class background on cognitive abilities of children. In Britain, the 1958 National Child Development Survey (NCDS), the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS70) and more recently, the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS 2000) conducted at the start of the 21st century are particularly relevant and nationally representative broad-based studies for exploring the impact of social class background on general cognitive abilities of children. It was observed that they provided scaled data and emphasized the impact of social class, particularly the role of parental education as an indicator of social class in surveys. Social class affected children’s cognitive abilities as early as primary school years and led to inequalities in their cognitive performance. Children from lower social class and lower socioeconomic status (SES) families suffered a clear disadvantage. Poor and disadvantaged conditions of the lower social class adversely impacted and impaired the cognitive ability of children. Given the fact that cognitive abilities play a role especially in later life, adverse impacts and impairment of cognitive abilities are regarded as alarming and undesirable situations in childhood.

PSweight: An R Package for Propensity Score Weighting Analysis

Propensity score weighting is an important tool for comparative effectiveness research. Besides the inverse probability of treatment weights (IPW), recent development has introduced a general class of balancing weights, corresponding to alternative target populations and estimands. In particular, the overlap weights (OW) lead to optimal covariate balance and estimation efficiency, and a target population of scientific and policy interest. We develop the R package [PSweight](https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=PSweight) to provide a comprehensive design and analysis platform for causal inference based on propensity score weighting. PSweight supports (i) a variety of balancing weights, (ii) binary and multiple treatments, (iii) simple and augmented weighting estimators, (iv) nuisance-adjusted sandwich variances, and (v) ratio estimands. PSweight also provides diagnostic tables and graphs for covariate balance assessment. We demonstrate the functionality of the package using a data example from the National Child Development Survey (NCDS), where we evaluate the causal effect of educational attainment on income.

Is there a critical life stage to promote physical activity for preserving cognitive function? Results from a population‐based birth cohort

AbstractBackgroundPhysical activity improves cognitive function across the life course, reducing the risk of all‐cause dementia in older ages. We aimed to identify the life course model that best describes the association between physical activity throughout life and cognitive performance at age 50.MethodAdults aged 50 participants of the National Child Development Survey (NCDS) were followed from birth (1958) to 2013. Physical activity was accessed using a self‐reported questionnaire in each wave. Participants were classified as physically active or inactive. Short‐term memory was assessed by word recall test while the executive function was assessed by letter cancelation and animal naming tests. Scores from both cognitive domains were reported as standard deviation (SD). The most appropriate life course model (critical, sensitive, or accumulation) to explain cognitive performance at age 50 was identified by partial F‐tests.ResultData from 4,103 adults were analyzed (53.8% women). At age 50, most participants were employees (74.3%), non‐smokers (80.3%), and overweight or obese (64.7%). Whilst 175 (4.0%) of participants were physically inactive at age 7, 44.9% practiced physical activity once a week or less at age 50. Physical activity at age 42 was defined as a critical period for better memory and executive function at age 50 in men. Among women, physical activity at age 23 was identified as a critical period for executive function while the sensitive model best explained the association between physical activity through the life course and memory at age 50. Women who were physically active at age 23 had a better executive function (1.13 [95%CI 1.06, 1.20] SD) than inactive counterparts. Better performance on memory test was observed in women physically active at age 7 (0.18 [95%CI: 0.02, 0.34] SD), 23 (0.11 [95%CI: 0.03, 0.18] SD) and 50 (0.08 [95%CI: 0.01, 0.15] SD). Physically active men at age 42 showed better performance in memory test (0.12 [95%CI: 0.03, 0.21] SD) and executive function (0.11 [95%CI: 0.04, 0.18] SD) than inactive respondents.ConclusionEarly childhood and adulthood for women and late‐adulthood for men were identified as important life stages to promote physical activity for preserving cognitive function at age 50.

Estimating the late-life effects of social and emotional skills in childhood using midlife mediators

Social and emotional skills are known to affect health and non-health outcomes, but there is limited evidence on whether these skills in childhood affect late life outcomes because of a shortage of long-running datasets containing this information. We develop a three-stage procedure and use it to estimate the effect of childhood social and emotional skills on health and labour market outcomes in late-life. This procedure makes use of mediators in midlife which are shown to be predicted by childhood skills in one dataset and to predict late-life outcomes in another dataset. We use this method to combine estimates from the National Child Development Survey and the British Household Panel Survey. We find that childhood skills predict marital status, education, home ownership, income and health at age 46 years and these midlife variables predict levels of quality-adjusted life years and labour income accumulated by age 63 years. The combined estimates suggest a standard deviation increase in average Bristol Social Adjustment Guide total score at ages 7 and 11 is associated with 4.2% (standard error = 0.6%) additional quality-adjusted life years and more than 9.9% (£14,539, standard error = £2072) additional accumulated pre-tax earnings by age 63 years. Therefore, childhood interventions to increase social and emotional skills would be expected to reduce future healthcare costs and increase wealth. Our three-stage methodology can be used to predict the life-course effects of investments in childhood skills by combining results from datasets across population cohorts.

Physical Inactivity From Childhood to Adolescence and Incident Depression

The long-term impact of physical activity during early life on the risk of depression in later stages of adulthood remains unclear. This study examines the association between physical activity during childhood and adolescence and the incidence of depressive symptoms in early, middle, and late adulthood. Data from a birth cohort (the 1958 National Child Development Survey), including births (N=17,415) in England, Wales, and Scotland, were used. After birth, 11 more follow-ups were carried out between ages 7 and 62 years (2020). Leisure-time physical activity was assessed through a self-reported questionnaire. Psychological measures were assessed with the teacher-rated Bristol Social Adjustment Guide, the teacher-rated Rutter scale, and the self-rated Malaise Inventory. Leisure-time physical activity and psychological symptoms were examined in all the 11 follow-up assessments included in this study. Best-fit model was used to obtain hazard ratios and 95% CIs of depression symptoms by physical activity status in different ages, including demographic, behavioral, and health-related variables as potential confounders. After multivariate analysis, being physically active at age 16 years reduced the risk of incident elevated depressive symptoms (hazard ratio=0.73, 95% CI=0.62, 0.85) throughout adulthood. The long-term impacts of physical activity practiced at age 16 years persisted throughout adulthood up to age 62 years. Adolescence is a critical early-life period to promote physical activity for reducing the incidence of elevated depressive symptoms throughout adulthood. Public health policies should promote healthy lifestyles during the lifespan to reduce both the burden of physical inactivity and depressive symptoms at the population level.

The Consequences of Chronic Pain in Mid-Life: Evidence from the National Child Development Survey

Using data from all those born in a single week in 1958 in Britain we track the consequences of short pain and chronic pain in mid-life (age 44) on health, wellbeing and labor market outcomes in later life. We examine data taken at age 50 in 2008, when the Great Recession hit and then five years later at age 55 in 2013. We find those suffering both short-term and chronic pain at age 44 continue to report pain and poor general health in their 50s. However, the associations are much stronger for those with chronic pain. Furthermore, chronic pain at age 44 is associated with a range of poor mental health outcomes, pessimism about the future and joblessness at age 55 whereas short-duration pain at age 44 is not. Uniquely, we also show that pain experienced in childhood, at ages 11 and 16, reported by a parent and a teacher respectively, collected decades earlier, predicts pain in mid-life, indicating just how persistent pain can be over the life-course.

Life Narratives and Personal Identity: The End of Linear Social Mobility?

ABSTRACTThis paper uses visualisations of life trajectories drawn from the 1958 National Child Development Survey to show how this generation refused linear narratives of mobility in favour of jags and turning points. We argue that these visualisations demonstrate the limitations of conventional class-based interpretations of social mobility. . We show how these jags represent moments of switching between public and private lives, demonstrating the interruptions which this generation display. We argue that these visualisations are consistent with the distinctive historical conditions ofthis generation, especially its female members, We conclude that more studiesof popular identities of social mobility are needed.

'O Youth and Beauty:' Children's Looks and Children's Cognitive Development

We use data from the 11 waves of the U.S. Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development 1991-2005, following children from ages 6 months through 15 years. Observers rated videos of them, obtaining measures of looks at each age. Given their family income, parents' education, race/ethnicity and gender, being better-looking raised subsequent changes in measurements of objective learning outcomes. The gains imply a long-run impact on cognitive achievement of about 0.04 standard deviations per standard deviation of differences in looks. Similar estimates on changes in reading and arithmetic scores at ages 7, 11 and 16 in the U.K. National Child Development Survey 1958 cohort show larger effects. The extra gains persist when instrumenting children's looks by their mother's, and do not work through teachers' differential treatment of better-looking children, any relation between looks and a child's behavior, his/her victimization by bullies or self-confidence. Results from both data sets show that a substantial part of the economic returns to beauty result indirectly from its effects on educational attainment. A person whose looks are one standard deviation above average attains 0.4 years more schooling than an otherwise identical average-looking individual.

Reassessing the economic value of advanced level mathematics

In the late 1990s, the economic return to Advanced level (A‐level) mathematics was examined. The analysis was based upon a series of log‐linear models of earnings in the 1958 National Child Development Survey (NCDS) and the National Survey of 1980 Graduates and Diplomates. The core finding was that A‐level mathematics had a unique earnings premium of 7–10% at age 33. In recent years, this finding has contributed to the government's agenda of increasing participation in post‐16 study of advanced mathematics in England. Given that the 1958 NCDS participants are now 57 years old, this paper repeats this important work using the 1970 British Cohort Study (BCS). Updated models are used to investigate whether the A‐level mathematics premium also existed at age 34 for the 1970 BCS participants. There does appear to be a return of approximately 11% when replicating the original model closely but the robustness of this result depends on the model specification, sample size and the handling of missing data. We consider theoretical explanations of these findings and their implications for policy and future research.

Inverse Probability Weighting with Missing Predictors of Treatment Assignment or Missingness

Inverse probability weighting (IPW) can deal with confounding in non randomized studies. The inverse weights are probabilities of treatment assignment (propensity scores), estimated by regressing assignment on predictors. Problems arise if predictors can be missing. Solutions previously proposed include assuming assignment depends only on observed predictors and multiple imputation (MI) of missing predictors. For the MI approach, it was recommended that missingness indicators be used with the other predictors. We determine when the two MI approaches, (with/without missingness indicators) yield consistent estimators and compare their efficiencies.We find that, although including indicators can reduce bias when predictors are missing not at random, it can induce bias when they are missing at random. We propose a consistent variance estimator and investigate performance of the simpler Rubin’s Rules variance estimator. In simulations we find both estimators perform well. IPW is also used to correct bias when an analysis model is fitted to incomplete data by restricting to complete cases. Here, weights are inverse probabilities of being a complete case. We explain how the same MI methods can be used in this situation to deal with missing predictors in the weight model, and illustrate this approach using data from the National Child Development Survey.

Does cognitive ability influence responses to the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale?

It has been suggested that how individuals respond to self-report items relies on cognitive processing. We hypothesized that an individual's level of cognitive ability may influence these processes such that, if there is a hierarchy of items within a particular questionnaire, as demonstrated by Mokken scaling, the strength of that hierarchy will vary according to cognitive ability. Using data on 8,643 men and women from the National Child Development Survey (1958 birth cohort; Power, & Elliott, 2006), we investigated, using Mokken scaling, whether the 14 items that make up the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-Being Scale (Tennant et al., 2007)-completed when the participants were 50 years of age-form a hierarchy and whether that hierarchy varied according to cognitive ability at age 11 years. Among the sample as a whole, we found a moderately strong unidimensional hierarchy of items (Loevinger's coefficient [H] = 0.48). We split participants into 3 groups according to cognitive ability and analyzed the Mokken scaling properties of each group. Only the medium and high cognitive ability groups had acceptable (≥ 0.3) invariant item ordering (assessed using the HT statistic). This pattern was also found when the 3 cognitive ability groups were assessed within men and women separately. Greater attention should be paid to the content validity of questionnaires to ensure they are applicable across the spectrum of mental ability.

Intelligence in childhood and chronic widespread pain in middle age: The National Child Development Survey

Psychological factors are thought to play a part in the aetiology of chronic widespread pain. We investigated the relationship between intelligence in childhood and risk of chronic widespread pain in adulthood in 6902 men and women from the National Child Development Survey (1958 British Birth Cohort). Participants took a test of general cognitive ability at age 11years; and chronic widespread pain, defined according to the American College of Rheumatology criteria, was assessed at age 45years. Risk ratios (RRs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were estimated using log-binomial regression, adjusting for sex and potential confounding or mediating factors. Risk of chronic widespread pain, defined according to the American College of Rheumatology criteria, rose in a stepwise fashion as intelligence fell (P for linear trend <0.0001). In sex-adjusted analyses, for an SD lower intelligence quotient, the RR of chronic widespread pain was 1.26 (95% CI 1.17–1.35). In multivariate backwards stepwise regression, lower childhood intelligence remained as an independent predictor of chronic widespread pain (RR 1.10; 95% CI 1.01–1.19), along with social class, educational attainment, body mass index, smoking status, and psychological distress. Part of the effect of lower childhood intelligence on risk of chronic widespread pain in midlife was significantly mediated through greater body mass index and more disadvantaged socioeconomic position. Men and women with higher intelligence in childhood are less likely as adults to report chronic widespread pain.

Cognitive Function in Childhood and Lifetime Cognitive Change in Relation to Mental Wellbeing in Four Cohorts of Older People

BackgroundPoorer cognitive ability in youth is a risk factor for later mental health problems but it is largely unknown whether cognitive ability, in youth or in later life, is predictive of mental wellbeing. The purpose of this study was to investigate whether cognitive ability at age 11 years, cognitive ability in later life, or lifetime cognitive change are associated with mental wellbeing in older people.MethodsWe used data on 8191 men and women aged 50 to 87 years from four cohorts in the HALCyon collaborative research programme into healthy ageing: the Aberdeen Birth Cohort 1936, the Lothian Birth Cohort 1921, the National Child Development Survey, and the MRC National Survey for Health and Development. We used linear regression to examine associations between cognitive ability at age 11, cognitive ability in later life, and lifetime change in cognitive ability and mean score on the Warwick Edinburgh Mental Wellbeing Scale and meta-analysis to obtain an overall estimate of the effect of each.ResultsPeople whose cognitive ability at age 11 was a standard deviation above the mean scored 0.53 points higher on the mental wellbeing scale (95% confidence interval 0.36, 0.71). The equivalent value for cognitive ability in later life was 0.89 points (0.72, 1.07). A standard deviation improvement in cognitive ability in later life relative to childhood ability was associated with 0.66 points (0.39, 0.93) advantage in wellbeing score. These effect sizes equate to around 0.1 of a standard deviation in mental wellbeing score. Adjustment for potential confounding and mediating variables, primarily the personality trait neuroticism, substantially attenuated these associations.ConclusionAssociations between cognitive ability in childhood or lifetime cognitive change and mental wellbeing in older people are slight and may be confounded by personality trait differences.

Intelligence quotient in childhood and the risk of illegal drug use in middle-age: the 1958 National Child Development Survey

PurposeHigh childhood IQ test scores have been associated with increased alcohol dependency and use in adult life, but the relationship between childhood IQ and illegal drug use in later life is unclear. MethodsParticipants were 6713 members of the 1958 National Child Development Survey whose IQ was assessed at 11 years and had their lifetime illegal drug use measured at 42 years of age. ResultsIn analyses adjusted for a range of covariates, a 1 SD (15-point) increase in IQ scores was associated with an increased risk of illegal drug use in women: ever using cannabis (odds ratio [OR], 1.30; 95% confidence interval [95% CI], 1.16–1.45), cocaine (OR, 1.66; 95% CI, 1.21–2.27), amphetamines (OR, 1.50; 95% CI, 1.22–1.83), amyl nitrate (OR, 1.79; 95% CI, 1.30–2.46) and “magic mushrooms” (OR, 1.52; 95% CI, 1.18–1.98). Associations were of lower magnitude in men. ConclusionsIn this cohort, high childhood IQ was related to illegal drug use in adulthood.

Born into adversity; The intergenerational transmission of psychological morbidity in second generation Irish children living in Britain

ObjectiveDespite relative improvements in socioeconomic position across generations, Irish people living in Britain continue to suffer from excess psychological morbidity. This study will aim to elucidate factors relating to the...

A life-cycle approach to the analysis of the relationship between social capital and health in Britain

I examine to what extent social capital can promote individual well-being in the form of good physical and mental health. Our analysis is based on multiple waves of data from the National Child Development Survey and the British Cohort Study, two large cohort studies following the lives of children who were born in Britain in one particular week in 1958 and 1970. I use waves that are comparable across the surveys in childhood and adulthood to explore the association between aspects of social capital and several measures of health when adopting a life-cycle approach. The findings suggest that individuals with high levels of social capital generally fare better than individuals with lower levels of social capital and that such associations are robust to the inclusion of controls such as physical and mental health in childhood and circumstances of the family of origin.

Psychomotor Coordination and Intelligence in Childhood and Health in Adulthood—Testing the System Integrity Hypothesis

To examine associations between intelligence and psychomotor coordination in childhood and risk of psychological distress, poorer self-rated health, and obesity in adulthood. To investigate whether psychomotor coordination as a potential marker of the construct "system integrity" explains associations between intelligence and these outcomes. Participants were members of two British national birth cohorts: the 1958 National Child Development Survey (n = 6147) and the 1970 British Cohort Study (n = 6475). They took tests of psychomotor coordination and intelligence at age 10 to 11 years and reported on their health when in their early 30s. For a standard deviation increase in psychomotor coordination score, sex-adjusted odds ratios (95% CI) for the 1958 and 1970 cohorts, respectively, were 0.79 (0.72-0.87) and 0.83 (0.77-0.89) for psychological distress, 0.79 (0.73-0.85) and 0.85 (0.78-0.91) for fair/poor self-rated health, and 0.81 (0.75-0.88) and 0.85 (0.78-0.92) for obesity. These associations were independent of childhood intelligence and most remained significant after adjustment for other covariates. Higher intelligence quotient was associated with a reduced risk of psychological distress, fair/poor self-rated health, and obesity in adulthood. These associations were not explained by potential confounding factors or by psychomotor coordination in childhood. Having better psychomotor coordination in childhood seems protective for some aspects of health in adulthood. Examination of the role played by other markers of the efficiency of the central nervous system may help reveal the extent to which system integrity underlies the link between intelligence and health.

Sibling Sex Composition and Educational Outcomes: A Review of Theory and Evidence for the UK

AbstractStudies from US data have found mixed results regarding sibling sex composition effects and educational outcomes. Some researchers have found that sisters hurt women's education, others have found the opposite, and some have found no effects. This paper reviews the theoretical foundations for sibling sex composition effects and tests the theories using British data, on a sample of children born between 3 and 9 March 1958, from the National Child Development Survey. Methods from previous studies are replicated and extensions considered for ability, credit constraints, and family size. No sibling sex composition effects are found, but estimation results support the quantity–quality model.