Table Of ContentA Life Course Approach to Mental
Disorders
A Life Course Approach to Adult Health series
A Life Course Approach to Chronic Disease Epidemiology , Second Edition
Edited by Diana Kuh and Yoav Ben Shlomo
ISBN 9780198578154
A Life Course Approach to Women’s Health
Edited by Diana Kuh and Rebecca Hardy
ISBN 9780192632890
Epidemiological Methods in Life Course Research
Edited by Andrew Pickles, Barbara Maughan, and Michael Wadsworth
ISBN 9780198528487
Designing, Analysing and Understanding Family Based Studies in Life Course Epidemiology
Edited by Deborah A. Lawlor and Gita D. Mishra
ISBN 9780199231034
A Life Course Approach to Mental Disorders
Edited by Karestan C. Koenen, Sasha Rudenstine, Ezra Susser, and Sandro Galea
ISBN 9780199657018
A Life Course Approach to Healthy Ageing
Edited by Diana Kuh, Rachel Cooper, Rebecca Hardy, Marcus Richards, and Yoav Ben-Shlomo
ISBN 9780199656516
A Life Course Approach
to Mental Disorders
Edited by
Karestan C. Koenen
Sasha Rudenstine
Ezra Susser
Sandro Galea
1
1
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Foreword
We coined the term ‘life course epidemiology’ in the first book in this series ( A life course approach
to chronic disease epidemiology , 1997) to encourage epidemiologists with allegiances to three
different models of disease causation (adult lifestyle, fetal origins, and social determinants) to
work together to study the long term effects on adult chronic disease risk of physical or social
exposures across the whole of life, and across generations. The first book focused on chronic
physical disease, although we noted that a life course perspective was applicable to many health
and social outcomes. The second and third books in the series (A life course approach to women’s
health , 2002, and the second edition of A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology , 2004)
had a greater emphasis on understanding lifetime functional trajectories. Methodological chal-
lenges raised were tackled by the fourth book on Epidemiological methods in life course research
(2007), and extended by the fifth book (F amily matters , 2009), which showed how family-based
studies could help in determining causal associations in life course epidemiology. Most recently,
in the latest book A life course approach to healthy ageing (2014) we have reviewed the factors
across life that optimize well-being and function at the individual, body system and cellular levels;
and we highlighted the importance of studying variations in physiological reserve, and social and
behavioural adaptability.
From the start, we acknowledged that some of the concepts in life course epidemiology (e.g.
trajectories, transitions and turning points) and models (e.g. critical period and chain of risk
models) were borrowed from other research fields which had a stronger life course tradition.
These included developmental psychopathology and the life span developmental perspective
which form the foundations for this book in the series—A life course approach to mental disorders .
A short historical excursion into these research fields sheds light on today’s research priorities in
life course epidemiology.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the ‘critical’ effects of early life experiences were
central to psychoanalysis and behaviourist research (exemplified by the work of Sigmund Freud
and John B. Watson), as well as to developmental biology. Interdisciplinary studies of child growth
and development emphasized continuity, homogeneity and universality of developmental pro-
cesses. In the UK, John Bowlby, with his treatise on the effects of maternal care on mental health,
continued the psychoanalytical tradition into the post-war era, and influenced the shift from
institutional to foster care and the growth of preventive work with families. In the USA, behav-
ioural scientists had a particular impact on social policy in the 1960s when they joined forces with
policy-makers to create project Head Start. The central question in the programme’s evaluation
was whether any long-term benefits were due to the early intervention inoculating the children
against failure, as initially expected, or being the start of a chain of positive events.
During the 1960s and 1970s the dominant early life paradigm began to be challenged by reviews
of the available evidence suggesting that the timing and nature of the critical stimulus and the
critical system affected were poorly defined and, in almost every example, there was also evi-
dence of recovery or resilience. Out of this controversy, the life span developmental perspective
in psychology emerged. Its aim was to study constancy and change in human development from
birth to death. A role of early life experiences was not denied but the research imbalance was to
vi FOREWORD
be redressed by studies that focused on adolescent and adult plasticity, and on the gains as well as
the losses of later life. In developmental psychopathology, there was a move away from a simple
correlation between child and adult behaviours, with the implicit assumption of some underlying
structure that could be irreparably damaged, towards a ‘chain of risk’ model (exemplified by the
research led by Michael Rutter) where one adverse event would make another more likely, and so
on. Attention was paid to the heterogeneity of outcomes, factors influencing resilience in the face
of adversity, and triggers for discontinuity when chains of risk were broken.
This book brings together the latest conceptual and empirical developments linking back to
these two traditions in psychology, while at the same time considering the population causes and
consequences of mental disorders within a life course epidemiological perspective. Life course
patterns of mental and physical functions and risk of mental disorders differ. However, both phys-
ical and mental outcomes in later life are shaped by biological and social factors operating across
life, and some risk factors are shared. They also share an exciting research agenda that exploits
technological developments to characterize better longitudinal phenotypes and environmental
exposures, and attempts to understand why some population subgroups function well, despite an
increased lifetime risk factor burden. In designing, implementing and evaluating interventions
at key life transitions, both mental and physical health outcomes should be considered together,
given the potential bidirectional relationships, and placed within the wider social context to pro-
mote an integrated approach to health and social care.
Diana Kuh
Yoav Ben-Shlomo
May 2013
Contents
Contributors ix
Part 1 Introduction
1 Life course approaches to mental illness: the emergence of a concept 3
Karestan C. Koenen , Sasha Rudenstine , Ezra Susser , and Sandro Galea
Part 2 Methods in life course approaches
2 Study designs: traditional and novel approaches to advance life course
research 1 1
Stephen L. Buka and Mary E. Lacy
3 Measurement issues in epidemiology of psychiatric disorders 2 6
Patricia Cohen
4 Analytic considerations in a life course perspective 35
Leah Li
5 Age, birth cohort, and period effects in psychiatric disorders in the USA 4 6
Katherine M. Keyes and C harley Liu
Part 3 Life course approach to specific mental disorders
6 Schizophrenia and related psychosis 61
Golam M. Khandaker , M ary Clarke , M ary Cannon , and Peter B. Jones
7 Bipolar disorder 7 6
Leslie Hulvershorn and John Nurnberger, Jr.
8 Applying a life course perspective to depression 8 8
Sasha Rudenstine
9 Life course epidemiology of anxiety disorders 9 7
Renee D. Goodwin , Katja Beesdo-Baum , Susanne Knappe , and Dan J. Stein
10 Epidemiology of post-traumatic stress disorder 1 11
Nicole R. Nugent , Ruth Brown, K elcey Stratton , and Ananda B. Amstadter
11 Life course approach to substance use 1 33
Jennifer Ahern and Hannah H. Leslie
12 The life course perspective: a framework for autism research 1 41
Michaeline Bresnahan, T raolach Brugha, and Ezra Susser
13 Life course epidemiology of eating disorders 1 48
Karen S. Mitchell and Cynthia M. Bulik
viii CONTENTS
14 Attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder over the life course 1 56
Jessica Agnew-Blais and L arry J. Seidman
15 Conduct disorder across the life course 1 65
Sara R. Jaffee and Candice L. Odgers
16 Borderline, schizotypal, avoidant, obsessive–compulsive, and other personality
disorders 1 74
Andrew E. Skodol
Part 4 Understanding mechanisms
17 Cognitive function over the life course 1 85
Marcus Richards
18 Life course approaches to the genetic epidemiology of mental illness 194
Elise B. Robinson , Lauren M. McGrath, and Susan L. Santangelo
19 Impact of early environmental exposures on mental disorders across the life
course 204
Pam Factor-Litvak
20 Role of the social environmental over the life course in the aetiology of
psychiatric disorders 2 15
Stephen E. Gilman and J essica R. Marden
21 Social context and mental health over the life course 227
Arijit Nandi and Lauren Welsh
22 Epigenetic influences on mental illness over the life course 238
Monica Uddin and Levent Sipahi
23 Adverse childhood experiences and brain development: neurobiological
mechanisms linking the social environment to psychiatric disorders 249
Katie A. McLaughlin , Margaret A. Sheridan , and Charles A. Nelson, III
24 Social–biological interplay over the life course 259
Kelly Skelton , Kerry Ressler, E lisabeth Binder , and Bekh Bradley-Davino
Part 5 New directions in the life course epidemiology
of mental illness
25 Intergenerational transmission 2 73
Virginia Warner and Myrna M. Weissman
26 Mental disorders and the emergence of physical disorders 2 91
Laura D. Kubzansky and Ashley Winning
Part 6 Conclusions
27 Public health, policy, and practice: implications of life course approaches
to mental illness 305
Demetris Pillas , Kiyuri Naicker , Ian Colman, and C lyde Hertzman
I ndex 319
Contributors
Jessica Agnew-Blais Ruth Brown
School of Public Health, Department of Psychiatry,
Harvard University, Virginia Commonwealth University,
Boston, MA, USA Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and
Behavioral Genetics,
Jennifer Ahern
Richmond, USA
Division of Epidemiology,
School of Public Health, Traolach Brugha
U niversity of California, Berkeley, Department of Health Sciences,
California, USA University of Leicester, UK
Ananda B. Amstadter Stephen L. Buka
Department of Psychiatry, Department of Epidemiology,
Virginia Commonwealth University, Brown University,
Virginia Institute for Psychiatric and Providence, Rhode Island, USA
Behavioral Genetics,
Cynthia M. Bulik
Richmond, USA
Departments of Psychiatry and Nutrition,
Katja Beesdo-Baum University of North Carolina,
Institute of Clinical Psychology and Chapel Hill, USA
Psychotherapy, Mary Cannon
Technische Universität Dresden, Department of Psychiatry,
Dresden, Germany Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, and
Beaumont Hospital,
Elisabeth B. Binder
Dublin, Ireland
Max-Planck Institute of Psychiatry,
Munich, Germany and Mary Clarke
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Departments of Psychiatry and Psychology,
Sciences, R oyal College of Surgeons in Ireland,
Emory University School of Medicine, Dublin, Ireland
Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Patricia Cohen
Bekh Bradley Mailman School of Public Health,
Atlanta VA Medical Center, and Columbia University,
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral New York, USA
Sciences, Ian Colman
Emory University School of Medicine, Department of Epidemiology and Community
Atlanta, Georgia, USA Medicine,
University of Ottawa,
Michaeline Bresnahan
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Mailman School of Public Health,
Columbia University, and Pam Factor-Litvak
New York State Psychiatric Institute, Department of Epidemiology,
New York, USA Mailman School of Public Health,
