The prevalence of childhood bereavement in Scotland and its relationship with disadvantage: the significance of a public health approach to death, dying and bereavement

摘要

Background and Method: There is an absence of research on the prevalence of bereavementduring early childhood and the relationship between childhood bereavement andsocioeconomic status (SES) and this poses a challenge in both understanding and supportingchildren’s bereavement experiences. Using longitudinal data from the Growing Up in Scotlandstudy, which tracks the lives of three nationally representative cohorts of children, this paperaimed to address these gaps in research. It specifically drew on data from Birth Cohort 1 todocument the recorded bereavements of 2,815 children who completed all 8 sweeps of datacollection, from age 10 months to 10 years.Findings: The study found that 50.8% of all children are bereaved of a parent, sibling,grandparent or other close family member by age 8 and this rises to 62% by age 10. The mostcommon death experienced was that of a grandparent or other close relative. The studyalso found that children born into the lowest income households are at greater risk of beingbereaved of a parent or sibling than those born into the highest income households.Discussion and Conclusion: Given the prevalence of childhood bereavement and itsrelationship with disadvantage, this paper argues that there is an important need tounderstand bereavement as a universal issue that is affected by the social conditions in whicha child becomes bereaved, as well as an individual experience potentially requiring specialistsupport. This paper thus seeks to position childhood bereavement more firmly within thepublic health approach to palliative and bereavement care discourse and contends that doingso provides a unique and comprehensive opportunity to better understand and holisticallyrespond to the experience of bereavement during childhood.