The Emergence of Health Gaps in Early Life in France: Effects of Childhood Deprivation

Yuliya Kazakova , Institut national d'études démographiques (INED)
Lidia Panico , CRIS, Sciences Po; INED
Marion Leturcq, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

Evidence suggests that inequalities in health begin from the starting gate and that children’s early environments “get under the skin” from the earliest moments of life. Early childhood is therefore crucial to our understanding of the production of health inequalities in later life. Based on a French birth cohort study, we investigate early childhood deprivation and how it correlates to health. We develop a dynamic, multi-domain, child-cantered framework that allows exploring which dimensions of deprivation matter most for early health and how it links to dynamics of early health. Our preliminary findings show that deprived children have worse overall health, they more likely to suffer from underweight and overweight issues, and they are more likely to get asthma. We find that overall health and issues with weight are related to material, housing and health deprivations while respiratory and atopy issues are related to housing and extreme living conditions deprivations.

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 Presented in Session P1. Postercafe