Intergenerational Transmission of Health and Life span : An Exploration of an Association Between Parental Age-at-Death and Disease Outcomes in Offspring

Abstract: Parental and offspring life spans are modestly associated and a transmission of disease risk from parents to offspring has been proposed as a possible explanation. Using birth cohort data consisting of 86 168 offspring and their parents, the aim of this explorative study was to quantify and describe the association between parental age-at-death and risk of disease in offspring over a 33-year follow-up period. Hospitalizations due to diseases of the circulatory, musculoskeletal, and digestive systems, as well as mental and behavioural disorders and neoplasms were studied using standard survival analysis methods. Increased parental age-at-death was clearly associated with lower hazard rates for all disease outcomes except for neoplasms. Offspring to short-lived parents had a 59% higher hazard rate (HR: 1.59, 95% CI: 1.52 – 1.67, p<0.00) for hospitalization due to circulatory diseases compared to offspring of long-lived parents. For all disease outcomes except for neoplasms, there was a strong gradient in the offspring’s hazard rates based on parental age-at-death. Hazard rates were only minimally reduced when adjusting for parental SEI and parental household income. The results support a disease-mediated pathway linking parental age-at-death to disease risk in offspring across a wide range of disease outcomes.