Effects of childhood and middle-adulthood family conditions on later-life mortality: evidence from the Utah population database, 1850-2002

How do parents affect the health and longevity of their children? Parents can affect their children's life chances by transmitting a genetic endowment (or liability) for a long life while also providing resources and an environment that enhances (or limits) their children's longevity. Recently, more attention has been given to the role that very early conditions (including in utero) of childhood have on adult health outcomes ([1-3]). These and other investigators have been raising a fundamental question about human aging and whether the risk of mortality in the latter half of life is already "scripted" based on conditions arising during infancy, childhood, and adolescence.