Influence of early life factors on social inequalities in psychiatric outcomes among young adult Norwegian men.

"Conflicts of interest : None declared."

"Funding Research Council of Norway (Grant no. 161321/V50). Conflicts of interest: None declared. Key pointsSocial gradients were steep for suicide, psychiatric disability and psychiatric sickness absence, and indirect selection from early life factors could explain a substantial part of these social inequalities. This implies that public health policies to reduce social inequalities in health should be directed towards measures that include the whole life span and act across generations.Differences in study outcome rates were largest between men with basic upper secondary education (11 years) and men with complete upper secondary education (12–13 years). This could indicate that preventive intervention should be directed to educational policies because complete upper secondary level is a prerequisite for college or university studies, and it is also the limit for completed vocational training.Suicide and schizophrenia disability were associated with a combination of high parental and low own education level, but the inference of this finding is unclear."