Socioeconomic and psychosocial conditions of parents and cardiovascular risk factors in their children: The Belgian Luxembourg Child Study III

Socioeconomic and psychosocial handicaps are often associated with disease. There is a large body of information on adults on such relationships, but data are sparse on children. In a cohort of 1028 boys and girls, selected a t random from school classes in Province de Luxembourg, a mainly rural area of Belgium, these problems were analysed in age strata of 6-8, 8-10, 10-12 years. Participation rate wits 71%. Information was collected from questio nnaires,, Anthropometric variables, blood pressure and glucose as well as c holesterol, triglycerides and insulin were measured in the children and rel ated to the psychosocial and socioeconomic factors, organized into rural, p sychosocial, socioeconomic and alcohol/smoking clusters of observations. Ru ral: Duration of Living in the area of the child and parents correlated wit h diastolic blood pressure, particularly in boys (p < 0.01). Psychosocial: Housewives (p = 0.002) and their children (p = 0.002) had higher body mass indexes (BMI) than other mothers and their children. Sons of housewives als o had higher blood pressure (systolic, p = 0.0007, diastolic, p = 0.007). S ocioeconomic: Socioeconomic factors of parents profession, unemployment) pl ayed relatively minor roles. Alcohols/smoking: Alcohol consumption was rela ted to skinfold thickness in boys (p = 0.0227, but not in girls. Girls, but not bays, with smoking parents had higher BMI (p = 0.014). Multiple regres sion analyses suggested that psychosocial factors, such as housewives as mo thers of large families, may be important for associations with cardiovascu lar risk factors in their children. There were apparent differences in the findings between girls and boys, suggesting that boys are more vulnerable t o the impacts of the factors analysed.