title: Loosening the link between childhood poverty and adolescent smoking and obesity: the protective effects of social capital.
abstract: Pervasive, lifelong inequalities in physical health begin in early childhood and are driven, in part, by social gradients in risk factors such as smoking and obesity. Yet not all low-income children have elevated physical-health risks as adults. The relation between income-to-needs ratio at age 9 and smoking prevalence and body fat (body mass index) at age 17 was examined in a sample of 196 rural adolescents. Income-to-needs ratio is the U.S. federal government's defined index of household income as a proportion of the poverty line. This is the first study to show that links between childhood poverty and subsequent physical-health outcomes can be loosened. At-risk youth in communities with a relatively rich array of social capital did not smoke more or have greater excess body fat compared with their more affluent counterparts.
authors.affiliation: Department of Design & Environmental Analysis, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850, USA. gwe1@cornell.edu
authors.forename: Gary W
authors.initials: GW
authors.lastname: Evans
authors.forename: Rachel
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Kutcher
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D015897:Comorbidity; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009518:New York / Q000453:epidemiology; D009765:Obesity / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015995:Prevalence; D012424:Rural Population / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012907:Smoking / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D012944:Social Support