Relative impact of childhood and adulthood socioeconomic conditions on cause specific mortality in men

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Abstract
A cohort of all inhabitants in Oslo aged 30–54 years in 1990 was linked to the Census, Tax, and the Death Registers, for 58 751 people. Housing conditions from the 1960 census provided information on childhood social conditions. Six aspects of housing conditions were included in a housing index. This included information on rooms per household capita (0,1,2), type of dwelling (0,1,2), ownership (0,1), toilet (0,1), bath (0,1), and telephone in dwelling (0,1). This was summed for each individual and categorised to five approximately similar size groups. Income information for 1990, derived from taxation authorities, was used as the indicator of social conditions in adult age. Yearly wages, social security benefits, and other earnings were summed for the household, and divided by the number of consumers according to the following weights: 1.0 for the first adult person, 0.7 for spouse or child older than 16, and 0.5 under 16 years. The percentage of people across the five groups of housing conditions and income was fairly equal with 20% in the top and 20% in the bottom of the housing index, and 15% and 16% in the top and bottom income groups respectively. The age range for which 1960 census data provided evidence on childhood circumstances was determined by investigating age at marriage, because in Oslo at that time men would generally be registered as living in their parental home until marriage because of housing scarcity. The cut off point was chosen at the age where 97% were unmarried and this was evenly distributed across values of the housing index. Some did not answer all questions in the census, had zero income, or lived outside Norway in 1960 (34%). Age adjusted mortality rates were 37.1 among the excluded and 46.1 among the included (per 10 000 person years), suggesting small differences between the groups. To compare the relative influence of social conditions at two points in time a relative index of inequality was constructed.5

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