The direct effect of exposure to disease in early life on the height of young adult men in southern Sweden, 1814–1948.

This paper considers whether short-term variation in exposure to disease early in life, as measured by a variety of mortality rates, has an effect on the height of young adults. Height information for men born in southern Sweden, 1814–1948, and included in the Scanian Economic Demographic Database (SEDD), was obtained from records of medical inspections carried out as part of Sweden’s system of universal conscription. Community-level infant mortality rates were calculated not only by year of birth but also for time in utero and in the first year of life. Comparison between brothers was used to remove the influence of confounding factors. The results suggest that any effect that exposure to disease in early life, as measured by mortality rates, may have had on height, either through selection or scarring, is likely to have been very weak. Supplementary material for this article is available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00324728.2015.1045545 [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]