Early life climate and adulthood mental health: how birth seasonality influences depressive symptoms in adults

BMC Public Health

Research

Juan Chen¹  Danni Peng-Li²  Bin Wan³  Dong Sun⁴  Hao Zhou⁵ 

[1] Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Xi’an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, Xi’an, China;School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China;Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;Sino-Danish College (SDC), University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China;Department of Food Science, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark;Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany;International Max Planck Research School on Neuroscience of Communication: Function, Structure, and Plasticity (IMPRS NeuroCom), Leipzig, Germany;School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China;School of Public Health, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, China;School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, China;Stem Cell Transplantation Laboratory, Ningbo First Hospital, Ningbo, China;

关键词: Depressive symptoms;    Birth seasonality;    Interaction model;    Generation;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-023-15145-5

 received in 2021-09-26, accepted in 2023-01-27,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundEarly life in-utero can have long-term influence on the mental health status of individuals in adulthood, such as depression. Age, gender, socio-economic status, education, and geography are demographic factors shown to be particularly vulnerable towards the development of depressive symptoms. In addition, climate risks on depression include sunlight, rain, and temperature. However, whether climate factors in early life have a long-term influence on depression related to demographic vulnerability remains unknown. Here, the present study explored the association between birth seasonality and adulthood depressive symptoms.MethodsWe employed data from the project of Chinese Labour-forces Dynamic Survey (CLDS) 2016, containing the epidemiological data of depressive symptoms with a probability proportional to size cluster and random cluster sampling method in 29 provinces of China. A final sample size of 16,185 participants was included. Birth seasonality included spring (March, April, and May), summer (June, July, and August), autumn (September, October, and November), and winter (December, January, and February).ResultsWe found that born in Autumn peaked lowest rate of having depressive symptoms (16.8%) and born in Summer (vs. Autumn) had a significant higher ratio (OR = 1.14, 95%CI = 1.02, 1.29) when controlling for demographic variables. In addition, demographic odds ratio of having depressive symptoms differed between people born in different seasons, particular for age and geography.ConclusionOur findings suggest that birth seasonality influences the sensitive link of depressive symptoms with age and geography. It implicates early life climate environment may play a role in the development of adulthood depressive symptoms.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023

【 图 表 】