Childhood socioeconomic status and suicide mortality in early adulthood among Norwegian men and women. A prospective study of Norwegians born between 1955 and 1965 followed for suicide from 1990 to 2001

Even though the causes of suicide may be rooted in childhood, it is unknown how socioeconomic position (SEP) in childhood is related to suicide in adulthood. We describe the association between childhood SEP and suicide mortality in adulthood in Norway using registry data on 613 807 Norwegians born in 1955-1965. Data on 1 013 suicide deaths between 1990 and 2001 were linked to data on SEP indicators, using Cox regression. Suicide mortality was higher among women with high childhood SEP than among women with low childhood SEP. This association was explained in part by family situation in adulthood, but not by adult SEP. For males, after adjustment for adult SEP, we observed a similar but weaker association between suicide and childhood SEP. We discuss several mechanisms which may explain the direct positive association of childhood SEP with suicide mortality in adulthood, especially among females. These are downward mobility, not meeting high demands set by highly educated parents, psychological distress, mental disorder, gender differences and social networks and norms.Norway Suicide Socioeconomic status Childhood Lifecourse Prospective study Gender

Long-term trends of inequalities in mortality in 6 European countries

Objectives: We aimed to assess whether trends in inequalities in mortality during the period 1970–2010 differed between Finland, Norway, England and Wales, France, Italy (Turin) and Hungary. Methods: Total and cause-specific mortality data by educational level and, if available, occupational class were collected and harmonized. Both relative and absolute measures o

Socioeconomic disparities in suicide : Causation or confounding?

Altres ajuts: FNRS grant number 2015/V3/2/165-IB/MAA-10.Background Despite an overall reduction in suicide, educational disparities in suicide have not decreased over the last decade. The mechanisms behind educational disparities in suicide, however, remain unclear: low educational status may increase the risk of suicide ("causation") or low educational status and suicide may share confounders. This paper assesses whether educational disparities in suicide (EDS) are more likely to be due to causation. Method The DEMETRIQ study collected and harmonized register-based data on mortality follow-up from forty population censuses from twelve European populations. More than 102,000 suicides were registered over 392 million person-years. Three analyses were carried out. First, we applied an instrumental variable approach that exploits changes in the legislation on compulsory educational age to instrument educational status. Second, we analyzed EDS by age under the hypothesis that increasing EDS over the life cycle supports causation. Finally, we compared EDS in men and women under the assumption that greater EDS in women would support causation. Findings The instrumental variable analysis showed no evidence for causation between higher education and suicide, for men or women. The life-cycle analysis showed that the decrease of educational inequalities in suicide between the baseline 1991 period and the 2001 follow-up period was more pronounced and statistically significant in the first three younger age groups. The gender analysis indicated that EDS were systematic and greater in men than in women: the rate ratio of suicide for men with low level of education (RR = 2.51; 95% CI:2.44-2.58) was higher than the rate ratio in women (RR = 1.32; 95CI%:1.26-1.38). Interpretation Overall, there was little support for the causation hypothesis, suggesting that the association between education and suicide is confounded. Educational inequalities in suicide should be addressed in early life by early targeting of groups who struggle to complete their education and display higher risk of mental disorder or of mental health vulnerabilities

The potential impact of a social redistribution of specific risk factors on socioeconomic inequalities in mortality: Illustration of a method based on population attributable fractions

Background: Socioeconomic differences in health are a major challenge for public health. However, realistic estimates to what extent they are modifiable are scarce. This problem can be met through the systematic application of the population attributable fraction (PAF) to socioeconomic health inequalities. Methods: The authors used cause-specific mortality data by educational level from Belgium, Norway and Czech Republic and data on the prevalence of smoking, alcohol, lack of physical activity and high body mass index from national health surveys. Information on the impact of these risk factors on mortality comes from the epidemiological literature. The authors calculated PAFs to quantify the impact on socioeconomic health inequalities of a social redistribution of risk factors. The authors developed an Excel tool covering a wide range of possible scenarios and the authors compare the results of the PAF approach with a conventional regression. Results: In a scenario where the whole population gets the risk factor prev

Retirement and mortality in Norway - Is there a real connection?

The growth in life expectancy has lead to growing concerns about the need to raise the retirement age in order to stabilize the ratio between the economically active and the inactive, particularly in order to sustain the viability of social security systems (NOU, 2004; Palmer, 2003). Strong increases in the retirement age are needed to keep dependency ratios constant if the projected life expectancy growth will materialize (UN, 2007a; Eurostat, 2008). National Statistical Offices (including Statistics Norway), Eurostat and the United Nations assume that the life expectancy at birth will continue to increase by 1 to 2 years per decade (de Beer, 2006; UN, 2007; Eurostat, 2008; Alho et al., 2005). Statistics Norway (2009a, 2009b) assumes that the life expectancy at birth is going to continue to increase from 2008 to 2060, i.e. between 1.1 and 2.3 years per decade for men and between 0.8 and 2 years for women