Skip to main content
PMC home page
Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health logoLink to Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health
. 2005 Oct;59(10):898–903. doi: 10.1136/jech.2004.030932

Accuracy of adults' recall of childhood social class: findings from the Aberdeen children of the 1950s study

G Batty 1, D Lawlor 1, S Macintyre 1, H Clark 1, D Leon 1
PMCID: PMC1732932  PMID: 16166367

Abstract

Background: Although adult reported childhood socioeconomic position has been related to health outcomes in many studies, little is known about the validity of such distantly recalled information. This study evaluated the validity of adults' reports of childhood paternal social class.

Methods: Data are drawn from the Aberdeen children of the 1950s study, a cohort of 12 150 people born in Aberdeen (Scotland) who took part in a school based survey in 1962. In this survey, two indices of early life socioeconomic position were collected: occupational social class at birth (abstracted from maternity records) and occupational social class in childhood (reported during the 1962 survey by the study participants). Between 2000 and 2003, a questionnaire was mailed to traced middle aged cohort members in which inquiries were made about their fathers' occupation when they were aged 12 years. The level of agreement between these reports and prospectively collected data on occupational social class was assessed.

Results: In total, 7183 (63.7%) persons responded to the mid-life questionnaire. Agreement was moderate between social class of father recalled in adulthood and that measured in early life (κ statistics were 0.47 for social class measured at birth, and 0.56 for social class reported by the child). The relation of occupational social class to birth weight and childhood intelligence was in the expected directions, although weaker for adults' reports in comparison with prospectively gathered data.

Conclusions: In studies of adult disease aetiology, associations between childhood social class based on adult recall of parental occupation and health outcomes are likely to underestimate real effects.

Full Text

The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (87.4 KB).

Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

  1. Batty G. David, Leon David A. Socio-economic position and coronary heart disease risk factors in children and young people. Evidence from UK epidemiological studies. Eur J Public Health. 2002 Dec;12(4):263–272. doi: 10.1093/eurpub/12.4.263. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  2. Batty G. David, Morton Susan M. B., Campbell Doris, Clark Heather, Smith George Davey, Hall Marison, Macintyre Sally, Leon David A. The Aberdeen Children of the 1950s cohort study: background, methods and follow-up information on a new resource for the study of life course and intergenerational influences on health. Paediatr Perinat Epidemiol. 2004 May;18(3):221–239. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-3016.2004.00552.x. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  3. Ben-Shlomo Yoav, Kuh Diana. A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology: conceptual models, empirical challenges and interdisciplinary perspectives. Int J Epidemiol. 2002 Apr;31(2):285–293. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  4. Berney L. R., Blane D. B. Collecting retrospective data: accuracy of recall after 50 years judged against historical records. Soc Sci Med. 1997 Nov;45(10):1519–1525. doi: 10.1016/s0277-9536(97)00088-9. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  5. Blane D., Hart C. L., Smith G. D., Gillis C. R., Hole D. J., Hawthorne V. M. Association of cardiovascular disease risk factors with socioeconomic position during childhood and during adulthood. BMJ. 1996 Dec 7;313(7070):1434–1438. doi: 10.1136/bmj.313.7070.1434. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  6. Bourbonnais R., Meyer F., Theriault G. Validity of self reported work history. Br J Ind Med. 1988 Jan;45(1):29–32. doi: 10.1136/oem.45.1.29. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  7. Galobardes Bruna, Lynch John W., Davey Smith George. Childhood socioeconomic circumstances and cause-specific mortality in adulthood: systematic review and interpretation. Epidemiol Rev. 2004;26:7–21. doi: 10.1093/epirev/mxh008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  8. Gunnes G., Jörundsson E., Tverdal A., Landsverk T., Press C. McL. Accumulation of CD25+ CD4+ T-cells in the draining lymph node during the elicitation phase of DNCB-induced contact hypersensitivity in lambs. Res Vet Sci. 2004 Oct;77(2):115–122. doi: 10.1016/j.rvsc.2004.03.008. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  9. Heslop P., Smith G. D., Macleod J., Hart C. The socioeconomic position of employed women, risk factors and mortality. Soc Sci Med. 2001 Aug;53(4):477–485. doi: 10.1016/s0277-9536(00)00350-6. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  10. Krieger N., Okamoto A., Selby J. V. Adult female twins' recall of childhood social class and father's education: a validation study for public health research. Am J Epidemiol. 1998 Apr 1;147(7):704–708. doi: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a009512. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  11. Landis J. R., Koch G. G. The measurement of observer agreement for categorical data. Biometrics. 1977 Mar;33(1):159–174. [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  12. Lawlor D. A., Ebrahim S., Davey Smith G. Association between self-reported childhood socioeconomic position and adult lung function: findings from the British Women's Heart and Health Study. Thorax. 2004 Mar;59(3):199–203. doi: 10.1136/thorax.2003.008482. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  13. Lawlor Debbie A., Davey Smith George, Kundu Devi, Bruckdorfer K. Richard, Ebrahim Shah. Those confounded vitamins: what can we learn from the differences between observational versus randomised trial evidence? Lancet. 2004 May 22;363(9422):1724–1727. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(04)16260-0. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  14. Lawlor Debbie A., Davey Smith George, Patel Rita, Ebrahim Shah. Life-course socioeconomic position, area deprivation, and coronary heart disease: findings from the British Women's Heart and Health Study. Am J Public Health. 2005 Jan;95(1):91–97. doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2003.035592. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  15. Lawlor Debbie A., Smith George Davey, Ebrahim Shah. Socioeconomic position and hormone replacement therapy use: explaining the discrepancy in evidence from observational and randomized controlled trials. Am J Public Health. 2004 Dec;94(12):2149–2154. doi: 10.2105/ajph.94.12.2149. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  16. Lien N., Friestad C., Klepp K. I. Adolescents' proxy reports of parents' socioeconomic status: How valid are they? J Epidemiol Community Health. 2001 Oct;55(10):731–737. doi: 10.1136/jech.55.10.731. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  17. Lynch John, Smith George Davey. A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology. Annu Rev Public Health. 2005;26:1–35. doi: 10.1146/annurev.publhealth.26.021304.144505. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  18. Parsons T. J., Manor O., Power C. Changes in diet and physical activity in the 1990s in a large British sample (1958 birth cohort). Eur J Clin Nutr. 2005 Jan;59(1):49–56. doi: 10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602032. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  19. Smith G. D., Hart C., Blane D., Hole D. Adverse socioeconomic conditions in childhood and cause specific adult mortality: prospective observational study. BMJ. 1998 May 30;316(7145):1631–1635. doi: 10.1136/bmj.316.7145.1631. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  20. Wadsworth M. E. J., Butterworth S. L., Hardy R. J., Kuh D. J., Richards M., Langenberg C., Hilder W. S., Connor M. The life course prospective design: an example of benefits and problems associated with study longevity. Soc Sci Med. 2003 Dec;57(11):2193–2205. doi: 10.1016/s0277-9536(03)00083-2. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
  21. Wannamethee S. G., Whincup P. H., Shaper G., Walker M. Influence of fathers' social class on cardiovascular disease in middle-aged men. Lancet. 1996 Nov 9;348(9037):1259–1263. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(96)02465-8. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]

Articles from Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health are provided here courtesy of BMJ Publishing Group

RESOURCES