Early education and employment experiences impact cardiovascular health

Education and employment experiences in early adulthood contribute to cardiovascular health inequalities later in life, new research shows.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge, the University of Bristol and the UCL Social Research Institute have found that regardless of occupation and family income in mid-adulthood, education and work experiences in early adulthood impact cardiovascular health later in life.

The results were published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

For the study, researchers analyzed health and socioeconomic data, collected over several decades from more than 12,000 members of the 1970 British birth cohort, to determine the contribution of early adulthood to differences in cardiovascular health in mid-adulthood.

Data driven research

Scientists used a data-driven method to divide the population into different groups of socio-economic trajectories based on their participation in education, different types of employment, unemployment or economic inactivity at the start of their career. adulthood (aged 16 to 24).

They studied the association of these groups with cardiovascular risk factors at age 46, including blood pressure, cholesterol levels and waist circumference. To determine whether the association of socioeconomic trajectories in early adulthood with cardiovascular health was mediated by socioeconomic status later in life, they examined how adjustment for occupation or family income at age 46 affected performance. link.

Professor Kate Tilling, MRC’s Integrative Epidemiology Unit at the University of Bristol, and lead author of the article, said:. The method we have developed offers a flexible way to identify socio-economic position in early adulthood, and we hope that it will be used in the future to answer other research questions related to this. period of life.

Duration of studies related to cardiovascular health later in life

Researchers found that people who spent more time in education, in professional or managerial positions in early adulthood, had better cardiovascular health more than 20 years later (at 46) than other groups. Importantly, this association was not entirely due to higher income or higher-level employment at age 46, suggesting an independent and long-term association of early adulthood influences with health.

The results suggest that material factors in mid-adulthood do not contribute to the way in which the socio-economic trajectory of early adulthood affects health in mid-life, and the authors say that development health behaviors or psychosocial factors such as stress, depression and labor control in early adulthood may play an important role.

Dr Eleanor Winpenny of the MRC Epidemiology Unit at Cambridge University, and first author of the article, said: “We found that an individual’s education and employment experiences in early adulthood had a much greater impact on measures of heart health more than 20 years later than their occupation or income in early adulthood. that time.

“These results suggest that we need to provide more support for young adults to enable healthy development into middle age and prevent disease later in life. Given the additional disadvantage for young adults due to the current coronavirus pandemic, there is an urgent need to understand and mitigate the effect these circumstances may have on their future health. “