CYP Now - Adverse outcomes in adolescence following early childhood disadvantage

Disadvantage in early childhood – 0 to 5 years old – is associated with worse health and educational outcomes in adolescence. However, there is not much evidence on how adverse outcomes link to household income for the generation of young people born since 2000.

Young people who grew up in the poorest households were most at risk of poor educational outcomes followed by smoking. Picture: Lucie Carlier

Full Report: Adverse outcomes in adolescence following early childhood disadvantage
Report authors Aase Villadsen, Miqdad Asaria; Ieva Skarda; George Ploubidis; Mark Williams; Eric Brunner; Richard Cookson
Published by The Lancet Public Health, April 2023

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

Researchers from University College London, the London School of Economics, Health Foundation, University of York and University of Leeds set out to explore the link between household income in early childhood and various adverse outcomes at age 17.

METHOD

The researchers used data from the Millennium Cohort Study which follows up people born in the UK between September 2000 to December 2001. They analysed data on 15,425 young people aged 17. Roughly half the young people included in the study were male and half female.

The team focused on five adverse outcomes known to affect people's life chances – poor physical health, psychological distress, smoking, obesity and poor educational outcomes. They looked at how common these problems – on their own and grouped together – were among teenagers who grew up in different income groups and tried to work out the impact boosting household income might have.

KEY FINDINGS

The findings suggest living in poverty and disadvantage when very young is most strongly linked to multiple adverse outcomes in adolescence rather than any one problem. The analysis found adolescents who grew up in the poorest homes were nearly 13 per cent more likely than those from the richest homes to have four or five adverse outcomes at age 17.

Of the 15,245 young people included in the study, 37 per cent achieved poor academic outcomes, 23.3 per cent were obese, 14.7 per cent experienced psychological distress, 10.4 per cent were regular smokers and 7.6 per cent said they suffered from poor health.

Young people who grew up in the poorest households were most at risk of poor educational outcomes followed by smoking. Young people from the poorest households were about four times more likely to have two problems and 4.5 times more likely to have three problems jumping up to 12.7 times more likely for four or five problems.

The researchers looked at different scenarios to lift families out of poverty. Their modelling suggests eliminating socioeconomic inequality in early childhood could reduce this burden by about 80 per cent and reduce the number of young people with multiple problems by more than 10,100 per year. Meanwhile shifting the two poorest income groups to the middle group could reduce the proportion with multiple issues by about 30 per cent – nearly 4,000 fewer young people with multiple problems. However, merely shifting children from the poorest group to the next lowest income group did not make much difference, resulting in only a five per cent reduction in the proportion of young people with multiple problems at age 17.

IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE

The researchers say their findings suggest public health research should look more closely at combinations of disadvantages and risk factors.

Their modelling suggests policies to tackle multiple disadvantage can't simply be about tackling absolute poverty but need to ensure a fairer distribution of wealth and other advantages – such as access to good education and childcare – across the board.

FURTHER READING