Children's biobehavioral reactivity to challenge predicts DNA methylation in adolescence and emerging adulthood.

A growing body of research has documented associations between adverse childhood environments and DNA methylation, highlighting epigenetic processes as potential mechanisms through which early external contexts influence health across the life course. The present study tested a complementary hypothesis: indicators of children's early internal, biological, and behavioral responses to stressful challenges may also be linked to stable patterns of DNA methylation later in life. Children's autonomic nervous system reactivity, temperament, and mental health symptoms were prospectively assessed from infancy through early childhood, and principal components analysis (PCA) was applied to derive composites of biological and behavioral reactivity.

Parenting begets parenting: A neurobiological perspective on early adversity and the transmission of parenting styles across generations.

The developing brains of young children are highly sensitive to input from their social environment. Nurturing social experience during this time promotes the acquisition of social and cognitive skills and emotional competencies. However, many young children are confronted with obstacles to healthy development, including poverty, inappropriate care, and violence, and their enhanced sensitivity to the social environment means that they are highly susceptible to these adverse childhood experiences.

Lymphoblastoid cell lines reveal associations of adult DNA methylation with childhood and current adversity that are distinct from whole blood associations.

Background: Some cohort studies bank lymphoblastoid cell lines (LCLs) as a renewable source of participant DNA. However, although LCL DNA has proved valuable for genetic studies, its utility in epigenetic epidemiology research is unknown.

Methods: To assess whether LCL DNA can be used for life-course environmental epigenomics, we carried out a pilot methylomic study (using the Illumina Infinium Human Methylation 450 BeadChip) of nil-passage, Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-transformed LCLs (n = 42) and 28 matched whole-blood (WB) samples.

Human leukocyte telomere length is associated with DNA methylation levels in multiple subtelomeric and imprinted loci.

In humans, leukocyte telomere length (LTL) is positively correlated with lifespan, and shorter LTL is associated with increased risk of age-related disease. In this study we tested for association between telomere length and methylated cytosine levels. Measurements of mean telomere length and DNA methylation at >450,000 CpG sites were obtained for both blood (N = 24) and EBV-transformed cell-line (N = 36) DNA samples from men aged 44-45 years.

Childhood abuse is associated with methylation of multiple loci in adult DNA.

Background: Childhood abuse is associated with increased adult disease risk, suggesting that processes acting over the long-term, such as epigenetic regulation of gene activity, may be involved. DNA methylation is a critical mechanism in epigenetic regulation. We aimed to establish whether childhood abuse was associated with adult DNA methylation profiles.

Prospective association of morning salivary cortisol with depressive symptoms in mid-life: a life-course study.

Objective: Associations of cortisol and depression vary at different life-stages, yet population-based, prospective studies are scarce. We aimed to assess associations of morning cortisol with depressive symptoms in mid-life taking account of lifetime psychological health.

Methods: Participants were 5,403 men and women from the 1958 British Birth Cohort whose salivary cortisol was assessed at 45y (45min after waking (T1) and 3h later (T2)) and who completed the 5-item Mental-Health Index (MHI-5) about depressive symptoms at age 50y.

Development and Validation of the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI): Assessing Children's Well-Being and Assets across Multiple Contexts.

Few instruments provide reliable and valid data on child well-being and contextual assets during middle childhood, using children as informants. The authors developed a population-level, self-report measure of school-aged children's well-being and assets-the Middle Years Development Instrument (MDI)-and examined its reliability and validity. The MDI was designed to assess child well-being inside and outside of school on five dimensions: (1) Social and emotional development, (2) Connectedness to peers and to adults at school, at home, and in the neighborhood, (3) School experiences, (4) Physical health and well-being, and (5) Constructive use of time after school.

A comparative study of population health in the United States and Canada during the neoliberal era, 1980-2008.

This article draws on the vast evidence that suggests, on one hand, that socioeconomic inequalities in health are present in every society in which they have been measured and, on the other hand, that the size of inequalities varies substantially across societies. We conduct a comparative case study of the United States and Canada to explore the role of neoliberalism as a force that has created inequalities in socioeconomic resources (and thus in health) in both societies and the roles of other societal forces (political, economic, and social) that have provided a buffer, thereby lessening socioeconomic inequalities or their effects on health. Our findings suggest that, from 1980 to 2008, while both the United States and Canada underwent significant neoliberal reforms, Canada showed more resilience in terms of health inequalities as a result of differences in: (a) the degree of income inequality, itself resulting from differences in features of the labor market and tax and transfer policies, (b) equality in the provision of social goods such as health care and education, and (c) the extent of social cohesiveness across race/ethnic- and class-based groups.

[Social inequalities in health, early child development and biological embedding].

This paper describes evidence that led to the concept of biological embedding and introduces approaches designed to elucidate its mechanisms and role. Biological embedding occurs when: experience gets under the skin and alters human biological and developmental processes; systematic differences in experience in different social environments in society lead to systematically different biological and developmental states; these differences are stable and long term; and, finally, they have the capacity to influence health, well-being, learning, or behavior over the life course. The concept of biological embedding emerged from insights in population health on the unique characteristics of socioeconomic gradients: ubiquity in poor and post-scarcity societies alike; gradient seen regardless of whether SES is measured by income, education or occupation; cutting widely across health, well-being, learning and behavior outcomes; replicating itself on new conditions entering society; and, often, showing that flatter gradients mean better overall societal outcomes.

Commentary on the symposium: biological embedding, life course development, and the emergence of a new science.

A new science of human development is emerging, which has the capacity to transform the way we understand the origins of health and disease; to increase the public health significance of early child development; and to call into question how and when society should act on a range of health problems. It builds on the multidisciplinary evidence that social environments and experiences during sensitive periods in brain and biological development affect health for the balance of the life course through a process called biological embedding. Despite the fact that biological embedding has established credibility in the scientific literature, the transformative power of the new science has yet to be fully realized in policy and practice.

Measuring in support of early childhood development.

A child's early experiences and environments have a significant, measurable effect on later life trajectories of health and well-being. Each child's own world, especially parents and other caregivers, literally sculpts the brain and impacts stress pathways. Effective early childhood interventions exist that can improve adult and societal outcomes.

Frontal EEG/ERP correlates of attentional processes, cortisol and motivational states in adolescents from lower and higher socioeconomic status.

Event-related potentials (ERPs) and other electroencephalographic (EEG) evidence show that frontal brain areas of higher and lower socioeconomic status (SES) children are recruited differently during selective attention tasks. We assessed whether multiple variables related to self-regulation (perceived mental effort) emotional states (e.g.

Putting the concept of biological embedding in historical perspective.

This paper describes evidence that led to the concept of biological embedding and research approaches designed to elucidates its mechanisms. Biological embedding occurs when experience gets under the skin and alters human biological and developmental processes; when systematic differences in experience in different social environments in society lead to systematically different biological and developmental states; when these differences are stable and long term; and, finally, when they have the capacity to influence health, well-being, learning, or behavior over the life course. Biological embedding emerged from insights in population health on the unique characteristics of socioeconomic gradients: Ubiquity in poor and postscarcity societies alike; gradient seen regardless of whether socioeconomic status is measured by income, education, or occupation; cutting widely across health, well-being, learning, and behavior outcomes; replicating itself on new conditions entering society; and, often, showing that flatter gradients mean better overall societal outcomes.

Jurisdictional, socioeconomic and gender inequalities in child health and development: analysis of a national census of 5-year-olds in Australia.

Objectives: Early child development may have important consequences for inequalities in health and well-being. This paper explores population level patterns of child development across Australian jurisdictions, considering socioeconomic and demographic characteristics.

Design: Census of child development across Australia.

Hair cortisol reflects socio-economic factors and hair zinc in preschoolers.

This study examined the relationship between children's hair cortisol and socioeconomic status of the family, as measured by parental education and income. Low family socioeconomic status has traditionally been considered a long-term environmental stressor. Measurement of hair cortisol provides an integrated index of cumulative stress exposure across an extended period of time.

Childhood psychosocial adversity and adult cortisol patterns.

Background: Cortisol levels may be altered in childhood in association with maltreatment (neglect, abuse and witnessing abuse) and other adversities, yet little is known about whether effects on cortisol persist into later life.

Aims: To establish whether childhood psychosocial adversities predict cortisol levels in mid-adulthood.

Method: Childhood psychosocial adversities were ascertained in the 1958 British birth cohort and cortisol was measured in two saliva samples, one 45 min after awaking (T(1)) and the other 3 h later the same day (T(2)), from 6524 participants aged 45 years.

Unemployment and mortality: a comparative study of Germany and the United States.

Objectives: We examined the relationship between unemployment and mortality in Germany, a coordinated market economy, and the United States, a liberal market economy.

Methods: We followed 2 working-age cohorts from the German Socio-economic Panel and the US Panel Study of Income Dynamics from 1984 to 2005. We defined unemployment as unemployed at the time of survey.

How society shapes the health gradient: work-related health inequalities in a comparative perspective.

Analyses in comparative political economy have the potential to contribute to understanding health inequalities within and between societies. This article uses a varieties of capitalism approach that groups high-income countries into coordinated market economies (CME) and liberal market economies (LME) with different labor market institutions and degrees of employment and unemployment protection that may give rise to or mediate work-related health inequalities. We illustrate this approach by presenting two longitudinal comparative studies of unemployment and health in Germany and the United States, an archetypical CME and LME.

Associations with early-life socio-economic position in adult DNA methylation.

Background: Disadvantaged socio-economic position (SEP) in childhood is associated with increased adult mortality and morbidity. We aimed to establish whether childhood SEP was associated with differential methylation of adult DNA.

Methods: Forty adult males from the 1958 British Birth Cohort Study were selected from SEP extremes in both early childhood and mid-adulthood.