Longitudinal cohort study of childhood IQ and survival up to age 76

doi:10.1136/bmj.322.7290.819

BMJ 2001;322:819 ( 7 April )

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Longitudinal cohort study of childhood IQ and survival up to age 76

Lawrence J Whalley, professor of mental health, ^a Ian J Deary, professor of differential psychology. ^b

^a Department of Mental Health, University of Aberdeen, Clinical Research Centre, Cornhill Hospital, Aberdeen AB24 2ZD, ^b Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ

Correspondence to: I J Deary I.Deary{at}ed.ac.uk

Objectives: To test the association between childhoodIQ and mortality over the normal humanlifespan.
Design: Longitudinal cohortstudy.
Setting: Aberdeen.
Subjects: All 2792 children in Aberdeen born in 1921and attending school on 1 June 1932 who sat a mental ability testas part of the Scottish mental survey1932.
Main outcome measure: Survival at 1 January1997.
Results: 79.9% (2230) of the sample was traced. Childhoodmental ability was positively related to survival to age 76 yearsin women (P<0.0001) and men (P<0.0001). A 15 point disadvantagein mental ability at age 11 conferred a relative risk of 0.79of being alive 65 years later (95% confidence interval 0.75 to0.84); a 30 point disadvantage reduced this to 0.63 (0.56 to 0.71).However, men who died during active service in the second worldwar had a relatively high IQ. Overcrowding in the school catchmentarea was weakly related to death. Controlling for this factordid not alter the association between mental ability andmortality.
Conclusion: Childhood mental ability is a significantfactor among the variables that predict age atdeath.

What is already known on this topic
People in deprived conditions tend to have more illness and die younger

The reasons for this inequality in health are not fully established

What this study adds
IQ at age 11 years was significantly associated with survival up to 76 years in an Aberdeen cohort

The association was unaffected by adjustment for overcrowding

Men with high IQ were more likely to die in active service in the second world war

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