Stockholm university
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Denny VågeröEmeritus

Research projects

Stockholm Birth Cohort

The Stockholm Birth Cohort study (SBC) is a collaboration project between Swedish Institute for Social Research (SOFI) and Centre for Health Equity Studies (CHESS).

Reproduction of inequality through linked lives (RELINK)

The aim of this research programme is to study how social, economic, and health-related inequalities in the parental generation re-emerge in subsequent generations as well as the extent to which siblings and friends may explain or break this reproduction.

Publications

A selection from Stockholm University publication database

  • Global Health and the Changing Contours of Human Life

    2018. Ama de-Graft Aikins (et al.). Rethinking Society for the 21st Century: Report of the International Panel on Social Progress, 713-752

    Chapter

    The contours of human life – birth, childhood, maturity, reproduction, the experiences of health, illness, and disability, and death – have been and will remain nearly universal; but their duration and texture are undergoing great changes. In this chapter, we chart the transformations and make projections into the near future. Many of the trends are favorable: fewer children are dying, and many enjoy greater longevity. But these advances are not distributed uniformly among and within countries and regions. Furthermore, the value of longevity is compromised by an increasing number of people living with diminished health under inequitable systems of health and social care. A more just future can be achieved by a continuing emphasis on equity in global health systems even as human lives continue to be extended and enhanced.

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  • Stress resilience in young men mediates the effect of childhood trauma on their offspring's birth weight – An analysis of 250,000 families

    2019. Kristiina Rajaleid, Denny Vågerö. SSM - Population Health 8

    Article

    Experiencing the death of a parent during childhood is a severe trauma that seems to affect the next generation's birth weight. We studied the consequences of parental loss during childhood for men's psychological and physiological characteristics at age 18, and whether these were important for their first-born offspring's birth outcomes. We used a structured life-course approach and four-way decomposition analysis to analyse data for 250,427 three-generation families retrieved from nationwide Swedish registers and found that psychological resilience was impaired and body mass index was higher in men who had experienced parental death. Both characteristics were linked to offspring birth weight. This was lower by 18.0 g (95% confidence interval: 5.7, 30.3) for men who lost a parent at ages 8–17 compared to other ages. Resilience mediated 40% of this influence. Mediation by body mass index, systolic and diastolic blood pressure was negligible, as was the effect of parental loss on length of gestation. There was no mediation by the education of the men's future spouse.

    Previous literature has indicated that the period before puberty, the “slow growth period”, is sensitive. Our evidence suggests that this may be too narrow a restriction: boys aged 8–17 appear to be particularly likely to respond to parental loss in a way which affects their future offspring's birth weight. We conclude that the observed transgenerational influence on birth weight is mediated by the father's psychological resilience but not by his body mass index or blood pressure.

    Read more about Stress resilience in young men mediates the effect of childhood trauma on their offspring's birth weight – An analysis of 250,000 families

Show all publications by Denny Vågerö at Stockholm University

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