Introduction

Healthy development in early childhood encompasses physical health, socioemotional behaviour and cognitive ability. Early to mid-childhood is a crucial time in the life course, with concurrent rapid development and transition into formal education. Markers of early childhood health and development have been found to be socially patterned, with children from advantaged backgrounds doing better compared with their disadvantaged peers. A range of environmental factors influences early childhood health and development, including the health of their parents, suggesting possible intergenerational transmission of health. However, little is known about the pathways via which the health of parents influences child health and developmental outcomes. This chapter examines the Millennium Cohort Study (MCS) for evidence on a number of alternate pathways for parents’ health to influence children's health and development, assessing the contribution of parents’ psychosocial and health-related behavioural factors to children's outcomes.

Existing literature

A large body of research has linked parental health-related behaviours to markers of child health and development including smoking, alcohol consumption (Jones et al, 1973; Kelly et al, 2008) and body mass index (BMI) (Owen et al, 2005; Sharma et al, 2005). Parental health reflects contemporary circumstances as well as the accumulation of lifetime influences. Parental health status, as opposed to health behaviours, is less frequently investigated, although the effects of parental illness is an obvious pathway for the transmission of risks in the close environment from adults to children.

There are also socioeconomic factors that affect early childhood health and development including household income, parental occupation and education, nutrition, environmental stimulation, parenting, family relationships, housing, social networks and residential area (McLoyd, 1998; Evans, 2004; Duncan and Magnuson, 2005; Grantham-McGregor et al, 2007; Irwin et al, 2007). The underlying pathways by which environmental factors influence child health and development vary according to the particular marker of child health and development under consideration. Social gradients are evident for markers of childhood health and development including obesity (Jotangia et al, 2005), illness and morbidity (Aber et al, 1997; Berntsson and Kohler, 2001; Chen et al, 2002; Spencer and Coe, 2003), socioemotional behaviour (Meltzer et al, 2000; Kelly et al, 2001) and cognitive test scores (Evans, 2004; Duncan and Magnuson, 2005; George et al, 2007; Jones and Schoon, 2008; also discussed in Chapters 9, 10, 12 and 14, this volume).