People who lose a parent in childhood or adolescence have an increased risk of failing to live their normal lifespan, researchers warned yesterday.
Part of the problem is that children may face the same risks in life as their parents, researchers say.
But the Danish researchers say the impact of bereavement may also damage life chances.
Bereavement by the death of a parent is a major life event, but its impact on the survival rate of children has not been studied over the long term. In high-income countries, 3% to 4% of children experience the death of a parent before the age of 18.
"Such an early life adversity can have substantial impacts on future health in many ways," say Dr Jiong Li of Aarhus University in Denmark, and his team in yesterday’s (22 July) PLoS Medicine.
The researchers write that little is known about long-term or cause-specific mortality after parental death in childhood. So they used nationwide figures to identify 189,094 people from Denmark, Sweden and Finland, born between 1968 and 2008, who lost a parent before 18 years old.
Compared with the rest of the population, losing a parent was linked to a 50% rise in all-cause mortality. The risks were increased for most categories of cause of death, with the highest rise in risk for the same category of death as the deceased parent.
For unnatural death of a parent, the risk of overall mortality for the child was higher than when the parent died of natural causes – an 84% rise versus 33% for natural causes. But the study was limited by a lack of information on the quality of the parent-child relationship, lifestyle, and physical environment.
The team conclude: "Parental death in childhood or adolescence is associated with increased all-cause mortality into early adulthood. Since an increased mortality reflects both genetic susceptibility and long-term impacts of parental death on health and social well-being, our findings have implications in clinical responses and public health strategies."
Li, J. et al. Mortality after Parental Death in Childhood: A Nationwide Cohort Study from Three Nordic Countries. PLoS Medicine 22 July 2014 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001679 [abstract]
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