The socio-economic gradient in Allostatic Load: Results from the PIAMA birth cohort study

How early in life is the socio-economic gradient in health observed? This study investigates this question by focusing on childhood circumstances related to the parental socio-economic position (SEP) and their influence on Allostatic Load (AL) at the age of 12. Using biomarkers collected by the PIAMA population-based birth cohort study in the Netherlands when the respondents were around age 12 (N=1079), we examine the relationship between the parents’ education level and the children’s AL level and we assess whether this relationship differs between boys and girls. Our results illustrate that parental education matters for both boys and girls, but only when we consider fathers, i.e., the AL score of children of fathers with a high education level was around 5 percent lower than the score of children of low educated fathers. No association with AL was found for maternal education.