Psychiatric disorders following the clustering of family disadvantages in previous generations: a multigenerational cohort study

TL;DR

This study explores how disadvantages in previous generations, such as low income and mental health issues, can affect the mental health of grandchildren.

Contribution

The study provides new insights into how multiple disadvantages across generations contribute to psychiatric disorders in grandchildren.

Findings

Multiple disadvantages in grandparental and parental generations increase the likelihood of psychiatric disorders in grandchildren.

Improved socioeconomic and psychosocial conditions across generations reduce the risk of psychiatric disorders in grandchildren.

The transition from grandparental socioeconomic disadvantages to parental psychosocial disadvantages is particularly significant for grandchildren's mental health.

Abstract

There is a lack of multigenerational research on the extent to which mental health is informed by transmission of multiple disadvantages across previous generations. This study aims to investigate how family socioeconomic and psychosocial disadvantages cluster and transition over grandparental and parental generations, and how this might be associated with grandchild psychiatric disorders.

We utilized a cohort study with data following three generations from the Stockholm Birth Cohort Multigenerational Study, including 11,299 individuals born in 1953 (parental generation), their 22,598 parents (grandparental generation), and 24,707 adult children (grandchild generation). Family disadvantages as exposures were measured across two periods– grandparental adulthood (parental childhood) and parental adulthood (grandchild childhood), and included socioeconomic (i.e., low income, non-employment, overcrowding, and single parenthood) and psychosocial aspects (i.e., single parenthood, teenage motherhood, psychiatric disorders, and criminality of father). Psychiatric disorders in the adult grandchildren as outcome were defined by hospitalizations with a main or contributing diagnosis reflecting mental and behavioral disorders from age 18 until 2019.

Multiple disadvantages within the grandparental and parental generations, respectively, predicted higher probabilities of grandchild psychiatric disorders. Multigenerational transmission is evident in that grandchildren with combinations of grandparental socioeconomic disadvantages and parental psychosocial disadvantages had comparably high probabilities of psychiatric disorders. Importantly, improved socioeconomic and psychosocial circumstances across previous generations predicted comparably low probabilities of grandchild psychiatric disorders.

Mental health of future generations is informed by the transmission of multiple disadvantages across previous generations, and the transition from grandparental socioeconomic disadvantages into parental psychosocial disadvantages is particularly important.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s00127-025-02918-z.

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