Assessing the Impact of Changes in Household Socioeconomic Status on the Health of Children and Adolescents: A Systematic Review

Understanding how child and adolescent health is influenced by fluctuations in socioeconomic status has important public health and policy implications, as children are often subjected to both micro and macro-level socioeconomic events. This study provides the first systematic review to date on the relationship between changes in household or parental socioeconomic status and subsequent child and adolescent health outcomes. Eighty articles were identified for inclusion in this review, examining 85 different socioeconomic exposures in five categories: Income (n = 64), Employment (n = 14), Socioeconomic Mobility (n = 3), Education (n = 2), and Food Insecurity (n = 2). The health outcomes analyzed by these eighty articles were separated into eight discrete categories, with many articles examining outcomes in more than one category: Anthropometric Measurements (n = 21), Cognition and Development (n = 15), Dental Health (n = 3), Health Behaviours (n = 9), Mental Health (n = 12), Overall Parent/Guardian Assessed health (n = 6); Physical Health Outcomes (n = 11), and Socio-Emotional Behaviour (n = 30). Several consistent patterns emerged in the literature, such as a link between increased income and improved, or decreased income and deteriorating, cognition, dental health, and physical health. The results of this review suggest a need to replicate current studies in diverse geographies to expand generalizability and clarify regional patterns. There should also be an effort to go beyond income, and employment, to assess the relationship between less frequently studied socioeconomic exposures and child health outcomes.

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s40894-021-00151-8.

Generational differences in longitudinal blood pressure trajectories by geographic region during socioeconomic transitions in China

OBJECTIVES

To examine generational differences in longitudinal blood pressure trajectories by region following socioeconomic transitions, which is important for establishing the population risk of cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).

METHODS

With data from the China Health and Nutrition Survey (1991-2011), we used multilevel growth-curve models to estimate systolic/diastolic blood pressure (SBP/DBP) levels at the mean age and rates of change by cohort (born between 1931 and 1980), region, and sex.

RESULTS

Younger cohorts generally had higher SBP/DBP levels at 44.5 years but lower growth rates in SBP/DBP than older cohorts. They became prehypertensive (SBP ≥ 120 mm Hg or DBP ≥ 80 mm Hg) at an earlier age. The upward shift of SBP/DBP trajectories across cohorts was more pronounced in the Coastal and Southern Mountainous Regions than the Northeastern and Inland Regions, and for males versus females.

CONCLUSIONS

Younger cohorts have a longer lifetime duration of being susceptible to CVDs, posing warnings for an increased burden of CVDs. Generational differences in BP trajectories and geographic and sex variations in the cohort trends highlight the need for tailored interventions to tackle the generation, region, and sex-based risk of CVDs.

Integrating long-term dynamics of ecosystem services into restoration and management of large shallow lakes

Adequately understanding the dynamics of ecosystem services (ES), a practical framework for analyzing social-ecological systems (SES), is crucial for sustainable environmental management and decision-making. However, the interactions among multiple ES at multi-decadal scales are less explored, and many challenges remain to integrate long-term dynamics of ES into ecological restoration and management. Here, we combined socioeconomic data with synthesized paleolimnological records to assess the dynamics of 12 critical ES and regional SES in the Taihu Lake Basin (China) over the past century. Our results indicated that multiple provisioning services showed upwards trends while major regulating services in terms of water, sediment, soil and air regulation had sustained downwards trends since the 1950s, and reached dangerous status after the 1980s. This dynamic trade-off was mainly attributed to the effects of continued socioeconomic transitions including agriculture intensification, industrialization and urbanization. Anthropogenic land use change, pollution input, and climate changes are considered as major drivers of long-term environmental degradation. Regulating services exhibited various dynamical properties including different linear and nonlinear trends, and abrupt changes, which underlined the comprehensive consideration of legacy effects, ecological baseline, thresholds, and resilience into lake management. Environmental Kuznets curve analyses suggested that the regional SES started significant disorder from the 1970s driven by the transition between ES and non-ES (socioeconomic) supply, and then underpinned a gradual shift to reorganization stage after the 1990s. Our study highlights the significance of ES assessment from historical perspective to understand the major processes and underlying mechanisms of lake SES. With adaptive policy interventions on pollution control, efficient resource-use, and targeted environmental investment, the sustainability of regional SES can be expected.