Social Patterning of Health Risk Behaviors: the Mediating Role of Exposure to Childhood Adversity.

[摘要] Exposure to adverse childhood experience is common and has serious long-term serious consequences for physical and mental health as well as socioeconomic attainment.Yet we have limited understanding of what adverse experiences happen to which children.To address this knowledge gap, three research papers investigate exposure to adverse childhood experiences.The papers assess the childhood social and economic circumstances that shape exposure to adverse experiences, the link between childhood social and economic status (SES) and patterns in type and amount of exposure, and whether exposure to adverse experience mediates the relationship between childhood SES and health risk behavior.In Chapter 2, I demonstrate that while exposure to multiple adverse childhood experiences is associated with greater odds of current smoking and lower odds of former smoking in adulthood, exposure to adversity does not account for the association between childhood SES and adult smoking status.Chapter 3 explores links between childhood social and economic circumstances and patterns in type and amount of exposure to adverse childhood experience.Except for the consistent association with welfare receipt, aspects of disadvantaged childhood SES have varying associations with different adverse experiences. Additionally, disadvantaged childhood SES was associated with greater risk for multiple (3 or more) exposure.Chapter 4 examines the association between childhood SES and adolescent substance use, and whether adverse experiences account for the association between childhood SES and adolescent substance use.Results suggest that while disadvantaged childhood SES is associated with increased odds of adolescent substance use, and exposure to most every adverse childhood experience is associated with increased odds of adolescent substance use, exposure to adverse experience only mediates the relationship between select childhood SES factors and adolescent use of certain substances.These results highlight the importance of expanding research on adverse childhood experience in population samples with a longitudinal design that represents all SES groups, uses multiple measures of childhood SES, and includes instruments that represent the universe of stressors for children.

[发布机构] University of Michigan

[效力级别] Health Risk Behavior

[关键词] Adverse Childhood Experiences;Health Risk Behavior;Adolescent Substance Use;Childhood SES;Adult Smoking;Sociology;Social Sciences;Sociology