The association of conventional childhood and adulthood cardiometabolic risk factors and adulthood socioeconomic status with adulthood cardiometabolic health is well-established. However, the association between childhood socioeconomic status and adulthood cardiometabolic health is less studied. The aim of this thesis was to study the role of childhood socioeconomic status in determining adulthood cardiometabolic health by investigating the association of childhood socioeconomic status with adulthood health behaviors, risk of metabolic syndrome and glucose abnormalities, and with subclinical markers of cardiovascular disease.

The thesis is a part of the Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns Study (Young Finns Study), which is a prospective population-based follow-up study. The first cross-sectional study was conducted in 1980 and included 3596 children aged 3 to 18 years. Since then, regular follow-ups have been performed and, in this thesis, data until the 2011 follow-up was used. Cardiometabolic risk factors of participants have been measured since childhood and subclinical markers of cardiovascular disease were examined using noninvasive measurements in adulthood.

Higher childhood socioeconomic status associated with healthier lifestyle in adulthood in terms of dietary intake, smoking and leisure-time physical activity. Childhood socioeconomic status was inversely associated with the risk of having metabolic syndrome and impaired fasting glucose or type 2 diabetes in adulthood. Higher childhood socioeconomic status was associated with lower arterial stiffness, lower left ventricular mass of the heart and its better diastolic performance in adulthood. These findings show that higher socioeconomic status in childhood predicts better cardiometabolic health in adulthood determined by several wellestablished markers of cardiometabolic risk. Moreover, the findings of this thesis highlight the role of low childhood socioeconomic status as a risk factor of cardiometabolic health, alongside other conventional risk factors.