Childhood Adversity and Later Mortality in an Urban African American Cohort

Abstract

The Woodlawn Project is a longitudinal study of the development of psychological well-being and social adaptation in an epidemiologically defined cohort of African American first graders interviewed as adolescents and again as adults. The identification of childhood factors predictive of mortality has clear public health importance. Family and childhood adversity and psychosocial factors have been shown to have long-term effects on later mental health and school achievement in adolescence and young adulthood. However, possible effects of such factors on longevity have been “mostly unstudied.” In this article, we examine family and childhood factors in relation to the risk of later mortality.