title: Psychological and physical health at age 70 in the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936: links with early life IQ, SES, and current cognitive function and neighborhood environment.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Researchers in many fields are interested in the robust observation that higher socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with better mental and physical health. Prominent explanations for the association involve effects of stress due to relative material and social adversity in lower socioeconomic environments, but early-life intelligence may also contribute directly to both later-life socioeconomic status and health. Here, we evaluated the effects of early-life IQ on mental and physical health outcomes at age 70, in the context of effects of SES.
  
  
  METHODS
  The Lothian Birth Cohort of 1936 took part in the Scottish Mental Survey of 1947, providing a measure of IQ at age 11. They have been extensively surveyed at age 70.
  
  
  METHODS
  Body mass index, constraints on daily life activities, hospital anxiety and depression, number of diseases, level of physical activity, weekly units of alcohol consumption, and pack-years of smoking.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  SES had apparently direct effects on most outcomes, but age 11 IQ was also involved in several, either directly or because it contributed to SES. Several interactions helped to integrate these associations. High age-11 IQ tended to buffer effects of adverse environments on physical and mental problems in old age.
authors.affiliation: Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, UK. wendy.johnson@ed.ac.uk
authors.forename: Wendy
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Johnson
authors.forename: Janie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Corley
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Starr
authors.forename: Ian J
authors.initials: IJ
authors.lastname: Deary
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D015331:Cohort Studies; D003863:Depression; D005260:Female; D015438:Health Behavior; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D007360:Intelligence; D008297:Male; D012111:Residence Characteristics; D012606:Scotland; D012923:Social Class