The impact of childhood experience of starvations on the health of older adults: Evidence from China

Abstract

This paper used pooled cross-sectional data from the Chinese Longitudinal Healthy Longevity Survey to comprehensively investigate how childhood experiences of starvation affect the health of older Chinese adults. The study found that the childhood experience of starvation was negatively correlated with self-rated health, functional health and cognitive health among older adults. After using the model and variable substitution methods to address the endogeneity problems caused by omitted variables, the negative effects of childhood experiences of starvation on the health of older adults were still present. The Karlson-Holm-Breen decomposition method was used to test the mediation effects, and it was found that childhood experiences of starvation had adverse effects on the health of older adults through endowment insurance, household income, education and nutrition. Consequently, the government should strengthen nutrition or other related health interventions for children and make longer-term plans for improving the health of older adults. K E Y W O R D S childhood experience of starvation, China, health, older adults 1 | INTRODUCTION Among the many indicators used to measure human welfare, health is the most closely related to individual survival. Currently, with the increasing ageing of the population, countries worldwide are faced with challenges with regard to supporting the health and quality of life of the elderly population. In 1990, with the aim of improving the

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