The mediating pathways between socio-economic status and health: a life-course perspective

Socio-economic health differences are often described but still insufficiently understood. Different pathways are characterized that link socio-economic status (SES) to health outcomes, however, this did not result in many effective interventions to reduce socio-economic health differences1,2. A life-course perspective can strengthen the effectiveness of interventions.

In recent decades, the life-course approach has developed into a leading framework in epidemiology3. Life-course epidemiology is the study of long-term effects on later health or disease risk of physical or social exposure during gestation, childhood, adolescence, young adulthood and later adult life. The aim is to reveal behavioral, biological, and psychosocial processes that operate across the life-course to influence the development of disease risk. It conceptualizes how factors at different life-course stages independently, cumulatively and interactively influence health and disease4