Table 3.
Associations of exposure to the Chinese Great Famine with depressive symptoms in late adulthood overall and by developmental stages among participants of the CHARLS study.
| Development Stages (ages when famine occurred) |
Famine Severity |
Age, sex, education, and childhood living area adjusted robust Poisson model |
Fully adjusted model* | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| RR (95% CI) | P | RR/OR (95% CI) | P | ||
| Overall participants | None | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 |
| (Propensity score | Moderate | 1.22 (1.17–1.27) | 1.17 (1.08–1.29) | ||
| matching analyses) | Severe | 1.48 (1.42–1.54) | 1.34 (1.20–1.51) | ||
| Overall participants | None | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 |
| (non-matching | Moderate | 1.23 (1.13–1.35) | 1.30 (1.12–1.52) | ||
| analyses) | Severe | 1.48 (1.33–1.65) | 1.64 (1.35–2.00) | ||
| Fetal (born or | None | 1.00 (reference) | 0.002 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.03 |
| conceived in famine) | Moderate | 1.16 (0.90–1.49) | 1.03 (0.68–1.58) | ||
| Severe | 1.87 (1.36–2.55) | 2.37 (1.25–4.48) | |||
| Infant | None | 1.00 (reference) | 0.76 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.55 |
| (0–1 year) | Moderate | 1.32 (0.79–2.19) | 2.58 (0.99–6.69) | ||
| Severe | 0.96 (0.41–2.27) | 0.86 (0.18–4.03) | |||
| Toddler | None | 1.00 (reference) | 0.44 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.96 |
| (1–2 years) | Moderate | 1.20 (0.88–1.65) | 0.99 (0.59–1.67) | ||
| Severe | 1.11 (0.69–1.79) | 1.03 (0.47–2.26) | |||
| Preschool | None | 1.00 (reference) | 0.12 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.57 |
| (3–5 years) | Moderate | 1.12 (0.84–1.48) | 1.18 (0.73–1.88) | ||
| Severe | 1.30 (0.93–1.83) | 1.19 (0.64–2.20) | |||
| Mid-childhood | None | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.02 |
| (6–11 years) | Moderate | 1.32 (1.08–1.61) | 1.32 (0.95–1.85) | ||
| Severe | 1.54 (1.23–1.94) | 1.63 (1.10–2.44) | |||
| Young Teen | None | 1.00 (reference) | 0.01 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.02 |
| (12–14 years) | Moderate | 1.17 (0.89–1.52) | 1.56 (0.95–2.58) | ||
| Severe | 1.47 (1.09–2.00) | 2.07 (1.12–3.82) | |||
| Teenagers | None | 1.00 (reference) | 0.89 | 1.00 (reference) | 0.42 |
| (15–17 years) | Moderate | 0.99 (0.75–1.32) | 1.10 (0.62–1.95) | ||
| Severe | 1.02 (0.72–1.44) | 1.30 (0.66–2.58) | |||
| Adult | None | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 | 1.00 (reference) | <0.001 |
| (18–30 years) | Moderate | 1.37 (1.14–1.66) | 1.63 (1.17–2.27) | ||
| Severe | 1.77 (1.42–2.21) | 2.20 (1.42–3.41) | |||
Note.CI=confidence interval, OR=odds ratio, RR=risk ratio.
*
RR was from robust Poisson regression for the overall participants after propensity score matching. All other estimates were ORs from logistic regression. Age, sex, education, childhood living area, current living area, marital status, self-perceived family income level, individual income sources, employment status, smoking, drinking, body mass index, diastolic blood pressure, lung disease, chronic kidney disease, digestive diseases, and arthritis were matched on or controlled for in the models.