ESRI Policy Seminar: "The Link Between The Early Life Environment and Allostatic Load: Evidence Of Biological Embedding Over The Lifecourse"

Venue: ESRI, Whitaker Square, Sir John Rogerson's Quay, Dublin 2

Speaker: Dr Michelle Kelly-Irving, The French Medical & Health Research Institute/Université Toulouse III

Socioeconomic gradients in health and life expectancy have been found across a large number of countries and evidence suggests that the growing burden of chronic disease is socio-economically structured. Research on the central role of early life circumstances in the development of disease across the lifespan is accumulating and a number of possible lifecourse processes have been identified which link early environment to later health gradients. The study of ‘biological embedding’ shows how we literally incorporate our environment into our bodies and is a central process in the lifecourse framework. This seminar will unpick the different domains of the early life environment with a particular focus on adverse childhood experiences and their association with adult health outcomes. The concept of ‘allostatic load’ is used to conceptualise the interrelatedness of different chronic diseases; allostatic load is measured using an indicator of multi-system physiological wear-and-tear. The lifecourse pathways between adverse experiences in early life and allostatic load in mid-life are examined empirically using the British 1958 Birth Cohort Study. The limitations, conclusions and next steps of this work will be discussed.