Intelligence and all-cause mortality in the 6-Day Sample of the Scottish Mental Survey 1947 and their siblings: testing the contribution of family background

摘要

BackgroundHigher early-life intelligence is associated with a reduced risk of mortality in adulthood, though this association is apparently hardly attenuated when accounting for early-life socio-economic status (SES). However, the use of proxy measures of SES means that residual confounding may underestimate this attenuation. In the present study, the potential confounding effect of early-life SES was instead accounted for by examining the intelligence–mortality association within families.