Mental Health in Later Life: Taking a Life Course Approach Alisoun Milne, Policy Press, Bristol, UK, 2020, 351 pp., pbk £28.99, ISBN 13: 978 1 4473 0571 2

2021 ◽  
Vol 41 (8) ◽  
pp. 1943-1944
Author(s):  
Rebecca Platt
Author(s):  
Oliver Arránz Becker ◽  
Katharina Loter

Abstract This study examines consequences of parental education for adult children’s physical and mental health using panel data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study. Based on random-effects growth curve models (N = 15,144 West German respondents born between 1925 and 1998 aged 18–80), we estimate gender-, age-, and cohort-specific trajectories of physical and mental health components of the SF-12 questionnaire for low and high parental education measured biennially from 2002 to 2018. Findings suggest more persistent effects of parental education on physical than mental health. In particular, both daughters and sons of the lower educated group of parents (with neither parent qualified for university) exhibit markedly poorer physical health over the whole life course and worse mental health in mid-life and later life than those of higher educated parents. Thus, children’s health gradients conditional on parental education tend to widen with increasing age. Once children’s educational attainment is held constant, effects of parental education on children’s health mostly vanish. This suggests that in the strongly stratified West German context with its rather low social mobility, intergenerational transmission of education, which, according to our analyses, has been declining among younger cohorts, contributes to cementing long-term health inequalities across the life course.


2015 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 313 ◽  
Author(s):  
Taylor W. Hargrove, MA ◽  
Tyson H. Brown, PhD

<br clear="all" /><p> </p><p> <strong>Objective: </strong>Previous research has docu­mented a relationship between childhood socioeconomic conditions and adult health, but less is known about racial/ethnic dif­ferences in this relationship, particularly among men. This study utilizes a life course approach to investigate racial/ethnic differ­ences in the relationships among early and later life socioeconomic circumstances and health in adulthood among men.</p><p><strong>Design: </strong>Panel data from the Health and Retirement Study and growth curve models are used to examine group differences in the relationships among childhood and adult socioeconomic factors and age-tra­jectories of self-rated health among White, Black and Mexican American men aged 51-77 years (<em>N</em>=4147).</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Multiple measures of childhood socioeconomic status (SES) predict health in adulthood for White men, while significant­ly fewer measures of childhood SES predict health for Black and Mexican American men. Moreover, the health consequences of childhood SES diminish with age for Black and Mexican American men. The child­hood SES-adult health relationship is largely explained by measures of adult SES for White men.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>The life course pathways link­ing childhood SES and adult health differ by race/ethnicity among men. Similar to argu­ments that the universality of the adult SES-health relationship should not be assumed, results from our study suggest that scholars should not assume that the significance and nature of the association between child­hood SES and health in adulthood is similar across race/ethnicity among men.<em> Ethn Dis.</em>2015;25(3):313-320.</p>


Author(s):  
Holly Syddall ◽  
Avan Aihie Sayer

This chapter describes a life course approach for understanding later life sustainability, focusing on grip strength as a marker of physical sustainability, and explaining how a life course approach recognizes that muscle strength in later life reflects not only rate of loss in later life, but also the peak attained earlier in life. We present evidence that risk factors operating throughout the life course have an impact on physical sustainability in later life with particular consideration of the effects of body size, socioeconomic position, physical activity, diet, and smoking. We have shown that low birth weight is associated with weaker grip strength across the life course and that there is considerable evidence for developmental influences on ageing skeletal muscle. Finally, a life course approach suggests opportunities for early intervention to promote later life physical sustainability; but optimal strategies and timings for intervention are yet to be identified.


Author(s):  
Ruth Bell ◽  
Michael Marmot

A long and healthy life is universally valued. The starkest inequalities in later life are how many years of life remain at an older age such as 65 years, and how many years of life that remain free from disabilities that impede physical, cognitive, and social functioning to the extent that they limit the sense of valuing one’s life. In this chapter we apply the frame of social determinants of health, using the life course approach to understand inequalities in health in later life. Healthy ageing is patterned by degrees of social advantage. Biological ageing, as revealed by physical and cognitive changes, is slower in people in better socioeconomic circumstances. These inequalities in health in later life need to be understood in terms of current social, economic, environmental conditions of living, as well as previous experiences and living conditions across the life course that affect the biological processes of ageing.


One Earth ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (6) ◽  
pp. 497-499
Author(s):  
Sarah R. Lowe ◽  
Ethan J. Raker ◽  
Meghan L. Zacher

Author(s):  
Alisoun Milne

Focusing on mental health rather than mental illness, this book adopts a life course approach to understanding mental health and wellbeing in later life. Drawing together material from the fields of sociology, psychology, critical social gerontology, the mental health field, and life course studies, it analyses the meaning and determinants of mental health amongst older populations and offers a critical review of existing discourse. The book explores the intersecting influences of lifecourse experiences, social and structural inequalities, socio-political context, history, gender and age-related factors and demands an approach to prevention and resolution that appreciates the embedded, complex and multi-faceted nature of threats to mental health and ways to protect it. It foregrounds engagement with the perspectives and lived experiences of older people, including people living with dementia, and makes the case for a paradigmatic shift in conceptualising, exploring and researching mental health issues and supporting older people with mental health problems. The book is essential reading for policy makers, health and social care professionals and students, third sector agencies, researchers and all of those concerned to more effectively and collaboratively address mental health issues in later life.


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