Child development as a determinant of health across the life course

Abstract 

Many diseases that emerge in adult life have their origins much earlier in the life course. Influences on adult health status occur through latent, pathway and cumulative effects of experiences earlier in life. Latency refers to relationships between an exposure at one point in the life course and a health outcome years or decades later, irrespective of intervening experience. Cumulative refers to multiple exposures over the life course, whose effects on health combine. Pathways are dependent sequences in which an exposure at one stage of the life course influences the probability of other exposures later in the life course, which are the proximate causes of disease expression. The emergence of socioeconomic differences in health status across the life course may be understood as an outcome of the interplay between the developing human, who has particular prospects and vulnerabilities at each point in the life course, and the latent, pathway, and cumulative influences found in their daily living conditions in society. Without consideration of both childhood and adult life experiences, policies designed to improve health status will tend to overlook root causes. Health policies should be based on an understanding that problems emerging today may be related to life experiences years and decades earlier.

Keywords:  Child development, Life course, Latency, Pathways, Cumulative effects, Longitudinal research