Intergenerational transmission of paternal trauma among US Civil War ex-POWs
| Autor: | Heather DeSomer, Dora L. Costa, Noelle Yetter |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
Male
Epigenomics 0301 basic medicine media_common.quotation_subject Social Sciences Mothers Captivity Affect (psychology) Nuclear Family Stress Disorders Post-Traumatic Fathers 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine reversibility Prisoners of War Humans Survivors Marriage Parent-Child Relations Child Socioeconomic status Stress Disorders Veterans media_common Pediatric Intergenerational transmission Peace Multidisciplinary epigenetics Prisoners Longevity Maternal effect Middle Aged POW Quarter (United States coin) mortality Justice and Strong Institutions humanities 030104 developmental biology Spanish Civil War Post-Traumatic intergenerational Female Psychology 030217 neurology & neurosurgery Demography |
| Zdroj: | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol 115, iss 44 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
| ISSN: | 1091-6490 0027-8424 |
| DOI: | 10.1073/pnas.1803630115 |
| Popis: | Significance Understanding whether paternal trauma is transmitted to children to affect their longevity, the mechanisms behind any transmission, and the reversibility of paternal trauma can inform health interventions and increase our understanding of the persistence of health within families. We show that severe paternal hardship as a prisoner of war (POW) led to high mortality among sons, but not daughters, born after the war who survived to the age of 45 but that adequate maternal nutrition countered the effect of paternal POW trauma in a manner most consistent with epigenetic explanations. We are not aware of any large sample studies in human populations that examine the reversibility of paternal trauma nor the long-term impact of paternal ex-POW status on children. We study whether paternal trauma is transmitted to the children of survivors of Confederate prisoner of war (POW) camps during the US Civil War (1861–1865) to affect their longevity at older ages, the mechanisms behind this transmission, and the reversibility of this transmission. We examine children born after the war who survived to age 45, comparing children whose fathers were non-POW veterans and ex-POWs imprisoned in very different camp conditions. We also compare children born before and after the war within the same family by paternal ex-POW status. The sons of ex-POWs imprisoned when camp conditions were at their worst were 1.11 times more likely to die than the sons of non-POWs and 1.09 times more likely to die than the sons of ex-POWs when camp conditions were better. Paternal ex-POW status had no impact on daughters. Among sons born in the fourth quarter, when maternal in utero nutrition was adequate, there was no impact of paternal ex-POW status. In contrast, among sons born in the second quarter, when maternal nutrition was inadequate, the sons of ex-POWs who experienced severe hardship were 1.2 times more likely to die than the sons of non-POWs and ex-POWs who fared better in captivity. Socioeconomic effects, family structure, father-specific survival traits, and maternal effects, including quality of paternal marriages, cannot explain our findings. While we cannot rule out fully psychological or cultural effects, our findings are most consistent with an epigenetic explanation. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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