International Journal of Epidemiology 2001;30:696-703
© International Epidemiological Association 2001
Reiterations |
Commentary: William Ogilvy Kermack and the childhood origins of adult health and disease
a Department of Social Medicine, Canynge Hall, Whiteladies Road, Bristol BS8 2PR, UK.
b MRC National Study of Health and Development, UCL Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, 1–19 Torrington Place, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
The 1934 Lancet paper by Kermack, McKendrick and McKinlay was a landmark in the discussion of birth cohort influences on adult disease risk.1 It pre-dated Wade Hampton Frost's paper on cohort influences on tuberculosis mortality,2 and, whilst it was pre-dated by several demographic analyses highlighting birth cohort influences,3,4 was prescient in using these analyses to inform hypotheses regarding early-life exposures and their influence on later disease. As Kermack, McKendrick and McKinlay concluded, the data behaved as if ‘the expectation of life was determined by the conditions which existed during the child's early years’, and concluded, ‘the health of the child is determined by the environmental conditions existing during the years 0–15, and ... the health of the man is determined preponderantly by the physical constitution which the child has built up’.1
The idea that adult disease is determined in early-life is currently most influentially reflected in the ‘fetal origins’ work
Who was William Ogilvy Kermack?
Kermack on the determinants of population health
Birth cohort influences on adult mortality: what happened after 1934?
The meaning of birth cohort effects
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