Roos – comparing social and biomedical factors for health

Another way that we’ve looked at these data on trying to understand what matters in terms of kids’ outcomes are comparing the impact of social factors with the impact of biomedical risk factors. I don’t want to say everybody knows but it’s generally acknowledged that when a child is born very prematurely or if a child is born very low birth weight that the child is at risk and pediatricians tend to follow them very closely, They may see the mother, ask her to bring the child in more quickly, they put intensive resources, critical care, they know this child’s at risk and needs resources if it’s to recover and have a reasonable life.  

So, one of the things which we’ve been doing is looking at, over the course of a child’s life, how likely is a child born very prematurely or very low birth weight or moderately low birth weight or moderately prematurely: how much has their health been put at risk, associated with these birth characteristics. And we do find high rates at which they continue to be hospitalized through life and through their childhood, as we would expect. What we also did was to see: what about kids who, at birth, their parents are poor, that they are – parents are on income assistance or live in a very poor neighbourhood.  Or that this is a child of a teen mother and what does this social characteristic, what does this imply for the child’s health characteristics over the course of childhood? How likely are they to be hospitalized on average, over their childhood? And how do these risk factors compare to the biological risk factors we’re so certain of?  

And one of the most remarkable things about this research is that we find very similar health risks from the social factors: from poverty, from young mothers, as you do from the biological risks. And typically, a child at social risk isn’t recognized as such by physicians, by society.