Young People from Low-Income Families Have Twice the Risk of Dying Early
Social Inequality: A new study shows that the social and economic background of young people significantly impacts their risk of dying at a young age.
It is well known that adults with lower education levels and incomes have a higher risk of becoming ill and dying earlier than those with higher education and income levels. However, it has been unclear until now whether the same applies to young people.
Researchers from the National Institute of Public Health have now investigated all deaths among young people aged 15-24 in the period from 2010 to 2022. The goal was to determine whether parental income, education level, and employment status affect their children's risk of dying at a young age. The results have just been published in the international journal BMJ Medicine.
"We wanted to examine whether there is social inequality in mortality among young people and, if so, what the causes are when young people die early. The majority of deaths among young people are due to accidents, unlike adults, who more often die from chronic or lifestyle-related diseases that develop over many years. Although we know that social and economic factors influence health and mortality risk in adults, we have not known whether this is also true for young people," says Sofie Kruckow, a research assistant and one of the researchers behind the study.
The study includes over 2,000 deaths and shows that mortality among young people doubles if both parents are unemployed or belong to the poorest in Denmark. The same applies if one parent has only a primary school education.
"Deaths among young people in Denmark are fortunately relatively rare, but because we had access to a large amount of data on all deaths over more than a decade, the study provides very convincing results. Among other things, we see a clear trend that young people's social and economic background is crucial to their risk of dying at a young age. The risk of early death is higher if you come from a less privileged home than if you come from a wealthy family. And we can see that the risk increases steadily with decreasing income across all income groups. This is an important finding because it shows that this trend is not only seen among the most vulnerable young people in society but across different social strata," explains Professor Janne Tolstrup.
Social Background Matters Regardless of Cause of Death
The researchers also examined what young people die from and whether there is a social bias in the causes of death.
For most — 60 percent of the young people — the deaths were unnatural. Of these, 58 percent were due to accidents, 36 percent to suicide, and 6 percent were homicides.
In 40 percent of cases, death was registered as a natural cause due to diseases such as cancer.
"We find that social background actually matters, even for young people, regardless of what they die from. This applies to both accidents and diseases. This is remarkable because, unlike adults, young people have not had many years of unhealthy lifestyles, which often explain social inequality in adult mortality. What is at play for young people, therefore, requires further research," says Sofie Kruckow.
The graph shows the risk of death. The Y-axis indicates the risk of early death, while the X-axis shows the income percentile. An income indexed to 50 (the median) represents an income that lies in the middle between the lowest and highest incomes. The risk of death is higher for young people from less affluent homes (indexed to 0 on the X-axis) compared to young people from wealthier homes (indexed to 100). For each decrease in income, there is an increase in the risk of early death, regardless of the cause of death.
Contact:
Research Assistant Sofie Kruckow, Tel.: +45 6550 7870, Email: kroc@sdu.dk
Professor Janne Tolstrup, Tel.: +45 6550 7735, Email: jest@sdu.dk
National Institute of Public Health, University of Southern Denmark (SDU).