Trajectories of Childhood Adversity and Type 1 Diabetes: A Nationwide Study of One Million Children

<b>Objective:</b> Experiencing adversities in childhood may increase the risk of type 1 diabetes through hyperactivation of the stress response system, but the empirical evidence is conflicting. We aim to describe the age-specific incidence of type 1 diabetes for males and females separately in five predefined groups covering the most common trajectories of adversity among Danish children. <p> </p> <p><b>Research Design and Methods:</b> We included all 1,081,993 children without parental type 1 diabetes born in Denmark from 1980–1998. We used register data to estimate age-specific incidence rates of type 1 diabetes in five trajectory groups of adversity characterized by 1) low adversity, 2) early life material deprivation, 3) persistent material deprivation, 4) loss or threat of loss in the family, and 5) cumulative high adversity. All analyses were stratified by sex.</p> <p><b> </b></p> <p><b>Results: </b>In total, 5619 persons developed type 1 diabetes before 2016. We found only minor differences when comparing the incidence rates of type 1 diabetes between the trajectory groups. The only clear exceptions were in the high vs. low adversity group, where males had a higher incidence of type 1 diabetes in childhood (<11 years [(IRR: 1.78; 95% CI: 1.31-2.42]) and females had a higher incidence in early adulthood (≥16 years [IRR: 2.19; 95% CI: 1.57-3.07]).</p> <p> </p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Childhood adversities were generally not associated with age-specific incidence of type 1 diabetes except among those exposed to a very high and increasing annual rate of childhood adversities. Differences between highly exposed males and females seem to depend on age at onset of type 1 diabetes.<b><br> </b></p>