Childhood survival linked to socio-economic status in EU study
Swansea University researchers have led a major European study investigating how socioeconomic circumstances influence survival among children born with major congenital anomalies.
A substantial European research study, spearheaded by Swansea University, has uncovered a strong connection between a child's socioeconomic status and their survival chances following major congenital anomalies. The investigation, part of the EUROlinkCAT collaboration, scrutinized data from over 47,000 children across ten anomaly registers in seven European nations.
By seamlessly merging health and administrative records, the researchers were able to scrutinize mortality rates according to socio-economic backgrounds while preserving stringent data privacy measures.
The study discovered that children born into the most disadvantaged socio-economic circumstances were significantly more likely to succumb than those from less deprived backgrounds. While disparities in survival were evident in infancy, the gap widened exponentially between the ages of 1 and 10, underscoring the profound impact of social and economic influences on health outcomes.
Professor Sue Jordan, the lead author, remarked that differences in mortality between affluent and impoverished children became more pronounced after the first year, when primary and community care play a more significant role.
The research brought together experts from Swansea University and Public Health Wales' Congenital Anomaly Register and Information Service (CARIS) with colleagues from European institutions in England, Northern Ireland, Italy, Finland, Ukraine, Malta, Spain, and Denmark. Dr. Hywel Turner Evans of the SAIL Databank, which facilitated the study, noted that children from more deprived backgrounds faced a 47% higher risk of dying within their first year, with the disparity increasing to nearly twice as high by ages 1-10.
While these associations varied across countries, Wales exhibited a consistent link between socioeconomic disadvantage and higher mortality during both infancy and later childhood.
Interestingly, no consistent association between maternal marital status and childhood mortality was identified. The researchers also observed that children born to non-EU nationals experienced higher mortality rates in countries where nationality data were available. The study's findings suggest that reducing the impact of poverty on child health could offer valuable insights for policymakers across the globe.
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