# Association between childhood family structure and health-related quality of life at middle age: A longitudinal study of Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966

## TL;DR

Growing up in a single-parent family (not due to death) is linked to lower health-related quality of life in middle age.

## Contribution

New evidence shows long-term effects of childhood family structure on adult health outcomes.

## Key findings

- Single-parent families (non-death-related) are linked to worse HRQoL in middle age.
- Two-parent families are associated with better health outcomes compared to single-parent families.
- Parental death in childhood does not significantly affect HRQoL in adulthood.

## Abstract

This longitudinal study evaluated the association between childhood family structure and health-related quality of life (HRQoL) at middle age.

The data on childhood family structure at the age of 14 years (‘two-parent family’, ‘one parent not living at home/no information on father’ and ‘father or mother deceased’) and HRQoL (measured by 15D (15-dimensional)) at the age of 46 were collected from the Northern Finland Birth Cohort 1966 using postal questionnaires. We used the binary logistic regression model to estimate the associations between childhood family structures and the lowest 15D quartile (reference: all other quartiles). The associations were adjusted for offspring mothers’ factors during pregnancy (mothers’ educational and occupational status).

Of the 6375 participants, the offspring belonging to the ‘one parent not living at home/no information on father’ family structure subgroup had higher odds ratio of belonging to the lowest 15D quartile than the offspring of ‘two-parent families’ (adjusted odds ratio (OR) 1.76, 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.31–2.36, p<0.001 for females; adjusted OR 1.86, 95% CI 1.28–2.70, p=0.001 for males). There were no statistically significant associations between the ‘father or mother deceased’ subgroup and the lowest 15D quartile among the offspring.

A single-parent family origin (due to reasons other than parental death) in childhood was significantly associated with impaired HRQoL at middle age. These results provide new perspectives for understanding the long-standing associations on living in a single-parent family.