Poorest children have worse health and educational outcomes in adolescence

Sad teenager on bench - Generation Z children born into the poorest fifth of families in the UK are 12 times more likely to experience a raft of poor health and educational outcomes by the age of 17 compared to more affluent peers, finds a new report led by UCL researchers. The study, published in The Lancet Public Health , used data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a major study of more than 15,000 children born after the new millennium (September 2000 - January 2002) who are now in their early 20s. Researchers collected data on five adverse health and social outcomes in adolescents aged 17 years, which are known to limit life chances: educational achievement, smoking, poor health, obesity and psychological distress. Children who were most disadvantaged between the ages of 0-5 were four and a half times more likely to do worse at school at the age of 17 compared to those in the highest income group. And they were three and a half times more likely to start smoking. Those born in the lowest income quintile group were also more likely to have a harmful cluster of vulnerabilities at age 17 and were 12 times more likely to experience all - or all but one - of the five adverse health and social outcomes examined by researchers, compared to those born in the highest income quintile. However, lifting families with children from the poorest income quintile group to the next poorest group would only result in a modest reduction in the clustering of multiple adolescent adversities (4.9% according to the scenario model).