Kelly-Irving, M;
Lepage, B;
Dedieu, D;
Lacey, R;
Cable, N;
Bartley, M;
Blane, D;
... Delpierre, C; + view all
(2013)
Childhood adversity as a risk for cancer: findings from the 1958 British birth cohort study.
BMC Public Health
, 13
(1)
767 - 767.
10.1186/1471-2458-13-767.
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Abstract
Background To analyse whether Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) are associated with an increased risk of cancer. Methods The National child development study (NCDS) is a prospective birth cohort study with data collected over 50 years. The NCDS included all live births during one week in 1958 (n = 18558) in Great Britain. Self-reported cancer incidence was based on 444 participants reporting having had cancer at some point and 5694 reporting never having cancer. ACE was measured using reports of: 1) child in care, 2) physical neglect, 3) child’s or family’s contact with the prison service, 4) parental separation due to divorce, death or other, 5) family experience of mental illness & 6) family experience of substance abuse. The resulting variable had three categories, no ACEs/ one ACE/ 2 + ACEs and was used to test for a relationship with cancer. Information on socioeconomic characteristics, pregnancy and birth were extracted as potential confounders. Information on adult health behaviours, socioeconomic environment, psychological state and age at first pregnancy were added to the models. Multivariate models were run using multiply-imputed data to account for missing data in the cohort. Results The odds of having a cancer before 50 y among women increased twofold for those who had 2+ ACEs versus those with no ACEs, after adjusting for adult factors and early life confounders (OR: 2.1, 95% CI: 1.42-3.21, p < 0.001). Conclusion These findings suggest that cancer risk may be influenced by exposure to stressful conditions and events early on in life. This is potentially important in furthering our understanding of cancer aetiology, and consequently in redirecting scientific research and developing appropriate prevention policies.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Childhood adversity as a risk for cancer: findings from the 1958 British birth cohort study |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1186/1471-2458-13-767 |
| Publisher version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-13-767 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2013 Kelly-Irving et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute of Epidemiology and Health > Epidemiology and Public Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1403735 |
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