Testing the specificity of environmental risk factors for developmental outcomes

Giacomo Bignardi*, Edwin S. Dalmaijer, Duncan E. Astle

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticle (Academic Journal)peer-review

12 Citations (Scopus)
191 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Developmental theories often assume that specific environmental risks affect specific outcomes. Canonical Correlation Analysis was used to test whether 28 developmental outcomes (measured at 11–15 years) share the same early environmental risk factors (measured at 0–3 years), or whether specific outcomes are associated with specific risks. We used data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study (N = 10,376, 51% Female, 84% White) collected between 2001 and 2016. A single environment component was mostly sufficient for explaining cognition and parent-rated behavior outcomes. In contrast, adolescents’ alcohol and tobacco use were specifically associated with their parents’, and child-rated mental health was weakly associated with all risks. These findings suggest that with some exceptions, many different developmental outcomes share the same early environmental risk factors.

Original languageEnglish
Number of pages17
JournalChild Development
Early online date22 Dec 2021
DOIs
Publication statusE-pub ahead of print - 22 Dec 2021

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
We are grateful to the Centre for Longitudinal Studies (CLS), UCL Institute of Education, for the use of these data and to the UK Data Service for making them available. Neither the CLS nor the UK Data Service bear any responsibility for the analysis or interpretation of these data. The authors are supported by grant TWCF0159 from the Templeton World Charity Foundation, and by the UK Medical Research Council (MC‐A0606‐5PQ41). We have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 The Authors. Child Development published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Research in Child Development

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