title: Socioeconomic status, birth weight, maternal smoking during pregnancy and adiposity in early adult life: an analysis using structural equation modeling.
abstract: We describe here an example of structural equation modeling in epidemiology. The association between birth weight and adiposity in early adult life, adjusted for the number of cigarettes smoked during pregnancy and socioeconomic status at birth, was evaluated. Data involving 2,063 adults from the 1978/1979 Ribeirão Preto cohort study were used. Adiposity was measured by body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC) and the sum of triceps and subscapular skinfolds (STSS). Models were submitted to maximum likelihood estimation, separately for men and women. Birth weight had a small and significant effect on adiposity in men (standardized coefficient, SC = 0.08) and women (SC = 0.09). Smoking during pregnancy did not influence adiposity in men (SC = 0.004), but its effect was marginally significant in women (SC = 0.07; P = 0.056). Socioeconomic status at birth had a small and positive effect on adiposity in men (SC = 0.08) and a moderate and negative effect in women (SC = -0.16). In this young adult population, BMI, WC and STSS used alone or in combination were valid estimators of body adiposity.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Saúde Pública, Universidade Federal do Maranhão, São Luís, Brasil. aasilva@elo.com.br
authors.forename: Antônio Augusto Moura da
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Silva
authors.forename: Ana Glória Godoi
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Vasconcelos
authors.forename: Heloisa
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Bettiol
authors.forename: Marco Antonio
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Barbieri
mesh_terms: D050154:Adiposity; D000328:Adult; D001724:Birth Weight; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D011247:Pregnancy; D011297:Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects; D012885:Skinfold Thickness; D012907:Smoking / Q000009:adverse effects*; D012923:Social Class; D055815:Young Adult