Table 4.

Estimation of indirect, direct, and total effects of childhood SES on telomere length and the proportion of the effects attributable to mediators from the path analysis: the GENE-FORECAST study

	1Direct effect		2Total indirect effect		3Total effect		4Percentage of mediation
	β (95% CI)	P value	β (95% CI)	P value	β (95% CI)	P value
Mother’s education	0.017 (−0.003, 0.035)	0.06	0.004 (−0.001, 0.01)	0.10	0.021 (0.004, 0.036)	0.038	19.04%

Values are regression β coefficients (95% CIs) derived from path analysis. Mediation analyses were tested by using bootstrapping methods with bias-corrected confidence estimates

SES socioeconomic status, TL telomere length, PSS Perceived Stress Score

¹Derivation of direct effects. In the path model, the effect size (coefficient) of a direct path is the regression coefficient between two variables

²Derivation of indirect effects. In the path model, the effect size (coefficient) of an indirect path is evaluated by calculating the product of the coefficients along that path

³Derivation of total effects. Direct and indirect effects were combined to derive the total effect

⁴The proportion of the associations between mother’s education and TL attributable to the mediator variables. Mediator variables are education level, physical activity, dietary habit, smoking status, depression score, and PSS of participants