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Month of Birth and Mortality in Sweden: A Nation-Wide Population-Based Cohort Study

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  • Peter Ueda
  • Anna-Karin Edstedt Bonamy
  • Fredrik Granath
  • Sven Cnattingius

Abstract

Background: Month of birth – an indicator for a variety of prenatal and early postnatal exposures – has been associated with life expectancy in adulthood. On the northern hemisphere, people born in the autumn live longer than those born during the spring. Only one study has followed a population longitudinally and no study has investigated the relation between month of birth and mortality risk below 50 years. Methods and results: In this nation-wide Swedish study, we included 6,194,745 subjects, using data from population-based health and administrative registries. The relation between month of birth (January – December) and mortality risk was assessed by fitting Cox proportional hazard regression models using attained age as the underlying time scale. Analyses were made for ages >30, >30 to 50, >50 to 80 and >80 years. Month of birth was a significant predictor of mortality in the age-spans >30, >50 to 80, and >80 years. In models adjusted for gender and education for ages >30 and >50 to 80 years, the lowest mortality was seen for people born in November and the highest mortality in those born in the spring/summer, peaking in May for mortality >30 years (25‰ excess hazard ratio compared to November, [95% confidence interval = 16–34 ]) and in April for mortality >50 to 80 years (42‰ excess hazard ratio compared to November, [95% confidence interval = 30–55]). In the ages >80 years the pattern was similar but the differences in mortality between birth months were smaller. For mortality within the age-span >30 to 50 years, results were inconclusive. Conclusion: Month of birth is associated to risk of mortality in ages above 50 years in Sweden. Further studies should aim at clarifying the mechanisms behind this association.

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  • Peter Ueda & Anna-Karin Edstedt Bonamy & Fredrik Granath & Sven Cnattingius, 2013. "Month of Birth and Mortality in Sweden: A Nation-Wide Population-Based Cohort Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-7, February.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0056425
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0056425
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Sophie E. Moore & Timothy J. Cole & Elizabeth M. E. Poskitt & Bakary J. Sonko & Roger G. Whitehead & Ian A. McGregor & Andrew M. Prentice, 1997. "Season of birth predicts mortality in rural Gambia," Nature, Nature, vol. 388(6641), pages 434-434, July.
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    Cited by:

    1. Youwei Wang & Yuxin Chen & Yi Qian, 2018. "The Causal Link between Relative Age Effect and Entrepreneurship: Evidence from 17 Million Users across 49 Years on Taobao," NBER Working Papers 25318, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Valérie Jarry & Alain Gagnon & Robert Bourbeau, 2013. "Maternal age, birth order and other early-life factors: a family-level approach to exploring exceptional survival," Vienna Yearbook of Population Research, Vienna Institute of Demography (VID) of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, vol. 11(1), pages 267-294.
    3. Lena Karlsson, 2017. "Indigenous Infant Mortality by Age and Season of Birth, 1800–1899: Did Season of Birth Affect Children’s Chances for Survival?," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 15(1), pages 1-12, December.
    4. Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Strulik, Holger, 2018. "How season of birth affects health and aging," University of Göttingen Working Papers in Economics 352, University of Goettingen, Department of Economics.
    5. Abeliansky, Ana Lucia & Strulik, Holger, 2020. "Season of birth, health and aging," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 36(C).

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