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Abstract
Background Children who have been exposed to public (out-of-home) care experience a range of negative outcomes by late adolescence and early adulthood. The longer-term impact of childhood care is, however, uncertain.
Aim To examine if there is a prospective association between childhood public care and adverse life outcomes in middle-age.
Methods We used data from the UK 1958 birth cohort study of 18 558 individuals. Parents reported offspring care status at age 7, 11 and 16. An array of social, criminal, cognitive, and health outcomes was self-reported by cohort members at age 42 (71% response proportion in eligible sample) and a cognitive test battery was administered at age 50 (62% response).
Results A total of 420 (3.8%) of 11 160 people in the analytical sample experienced childhood public care by age 16. Net of confounding factors, experience of public care (vs none) was linked to 11 of the 28 non-mutually exclusive endpoints captured in middle-age, with the most consistent effects apparent for psychosocial characteristics: 4/7 sociodemographic (eg, odds ratio; 95% confidence interval for homelessness: 2.1; 1.4 to 3.1); 2/2 antisocial (eg, use of illicit drug: 2.0; 1.2 to 3.5); 2/3 psychological (eg, mental distress: 1.6; 1.2 to 2.1); 1/3 health behaviours (eg, current cigarette smoker: 1.7; 1.3 to 2.2); 2/8 somatic health (physical disability: 2.7; 1.9 to 3.8); and 0/5 cognitive function (eg, beta coefficient; 95% confidence interval for immediate word recall: −0.1; −0.3 to 0.1) endpoints.
Conclusions The present study suggests that selected associations apparent between childhood care and outcomes in adolescence and early adulthood are also evident in middle-age.
- Life course epidemiology
- Public health
- Lifecourse/ childhood circumstances
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Footnotes
Contributors TX analysed the data, interpreted the results, and jointly drafted the manuscript. CdM built the data set, interpreted the results, and revised the manuscript. GDB generated the idea for the study, formulated an analytical plan, interpreted the results, and jointly drafted the manuscript. All authors approved the final version of the manuscript.
Funding The authors have not declared a specific grant for this research from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Competing interests None declared.
Patient consent for publication Not required.
Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.
Data availability statement Data are available in a public, open-access repository.
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