Disease accumulation across birth cohorts in South Korea

Objectives This article estimates rates and age-trajectories of disease accumulation across South Korean birth cohorts and assesses whether observed cohort differences persist after accounting for early-life exposures and adult characteristics.

Methods Data were from eight waves of the Korean Longitudinal Study of Aging (2006–2020) and included 8,202 participants aged 50 to 74 years. Birth cohorts were defined by historical periods: Japanese annexation (1932–1944), Korean liberation (1945–1949), Korean War (1950–1953), and Post-war (1954–1961). Poisson mixed-effects models were used to estimate disease accumulation using counts of self-reported chronic diseases. Models were built stepwise from a baseline model with cohort fixed effects. Subsequent models added a cohort/age interaction, early-life exposures (parental death and education), and adult characteristics (own education, residence, smoking, and obesity).

Results The Post-war (1954–1961) cohort has lower rates of disease accumulation than the older cohorts, which do not differ substantially from each other. Controlling for early-life exposures slightly reduces cohort differences, but controlling for adult characteristics leads to a larger reduction, leaving only the Korean liberation (1945–1949) cohort significantly different from the Post-war (1954–1961) cohort (IRR: 1.17, 95% CI: 1.07–1.29). This suggests adult characteristics explain most of the observed differences between the Post-war (1954–1961) and older cohorts, except the Korean liberation (1945–1949) cohort, which remains uniquely different due to unobserved factors.

Discussion These findings highlight how historical context and life course experiences are jointly associated with disease accumulation across cohorts. Adult characteristics play an important role, especially for older cohorts, and could be considered as important targets for disease prevention strategies.