Adult offspring's education and parental mortality: A nationwide cohort study of the mediating role of lifestyle-related diseases

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Abstract

Aim: The mechanisms behind the association between adult offspring's socioeconomic position and their parents' mortality are not well understood. This study investigates lifestyle-related diseases as a potential mediating pathway between adult offspring's education and parental mortality. Methods: This nationwide register-based cohort study consists of 963,742 older adults aged 65 years between 2000 and 2018. Lifestyle-related diseases were measured between 60 and 65 years and those with prior lifestyle-related diseases were excluded. Natural Effect Models were performed to assess potential mediation through lifestyle-related diseases of the association between offspring's education and parental mortality measured by additive hazard estimates with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). Results: Between 60 and 65 years, 150,501 (15.6%) older adults were diagnosed with lifestyle-related diseases and 149,647 (15.5%) died during follow-up. Compared with having offspring with long education, short education was associated with 631 (95% CI: 555; 707) and 581 (95% CI: 525; 638) additional deaths per 100,000 person-years for women and men, respectively, of which 15.4% (95% CI: 9.0; 21.6) and 16.8% (95% CI: 14.6; 18.9) were mediated by lifestyle-related diseases. The corresponding numbers for medium education were 276 (95% CI: 205; 347) and 299 (95% CI: 255; 343) with 26.2% (95% CI: 12.0; 40.6) and 27.6% (95% CI: 25.1; 31.8) mediated by lifestyle-related diseases. Conclusions: Lifestyle-related diseases accounted for 15-28% of the association between offspring's education and parental mortality for both men and women.

Translated title of the contributionAdult offspring's education and parental mortality
Original languageEnglish
Book seriesScandinavian Journal of Public Health
Number of pages13
ISSN1403-4956
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 2024

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