Manuel Flores, researcher at the Research UIC Barcelona Research Group for Evaluation and Public Policies (IRAPP), together with Barbara L. Wolfe have published the article “The Influence of Early-Life Health Conditions on Life Course Health”, in which they analyse and investigate the links between early-life health and health over the course of one’s life. The research is based on a data set that includes people from 21 countries from the Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe (SHARE). The research has been published in the journal Demography, a leading publication of the Population Association of America.

The authors examine four dimensions of early life health (mental, physical, self-reported general health, and migraines), and their outcomes and consequences for, for example, the onset of severe cardiovascular diseases (CVDs).

Likewise, the study highlights how early mental health problems in men have incidence and involvement in job market-related health variables in later stages of life. The results are similar in women, although less evident. They also examined possible mediating factors that could affect the links between early and later life health. Dr Flores points out that “the outcomes of the study are important as they help to better understand how health inequalities originate and are shaped over the course of people’s lives”. 

The journal Demography is a publication of the Population Association of America, a prestigious journal that has published authors from the top universities.