The Role of The Residential Environment on Biological Ageing in the UK

随着预期寿命的增加，老龄化社会的疾病和残疾负担继续增加，因此必须采取积极主动的办法来确定疾病风险。虽然实足年龄通常作为衡量衰老的标准，但它未能概括个体在各种器官系统中经历的与年龄相关的衰退的复杂和多样的轨迹。因此，生物老化作为疾病风险和死亡率的一个更微妙的标志而受到重视。目前对老龄化的研究主要集中在老年人口，忽视了与年龄有关的生理过程的变化可能在成年早期开始。世卫组织健康问题社会决定因素框架表明，结构性不平等将通过中间决定因素，包括物质、行为和心理社会因素，影响健康。人们的社会经济地位可以表明影响老龄化进程的结构性不平等。财富作为SEP的一个关键指标，对老年人来说特别突出，因为它捕捉了生命过程中资产的积累，SEP的不同指标之一，区域贫困水平，可能更适合于整个成年人。对居住环境和多器官系统老化测量的关注有限，但对成年人的整个年龄范围的关注较少。暴露于恶劣的生活环境可能会增加人们的压力水平，如果身体暴露于慢性压力下，可能会发生生物变化，导致身体多个系统失调，这可能会增加生物老化速度。本研究旨在评估居住环境与成年人的生物老化过程之间的关系，使用来自了解社会的数据。首先，本研究将比较具有不同社会人口统计学特征的成年人的多器官系统老化测量，然后使用Pearson和斯皮尔曼相关性来观察其与身体和认知功能测量的关联，以及使用潜在生长曲线模型来跟踪生物老化的测量如何与随后的健康相关生活质量下降相关。其次，本研究将使用两个水平的随机截距回归模型来检查区域水平SEP测量值和多器官系统老化测量值之间的关联。第三，本研究将利用结构方程模型探讨个人居住环境是否具有潜在的中介效应，以及个人居住环境在多大程度上中介了面积剥夺和生物老化之间的关联。区域剥夺指数可以被看作是通过物质中介途径的多维区域水平结构性决定因素（个人物理住房环境）影响英国所有年龄段成年人的生物老化。这项研究可以帮助确定小地理区域内的居住资源不平等，这对打破贫穷循环，减少老龄化和疾病相关干预措施所需的成本和资源，以尽量减少健康不平等具有重要意义。

As life expectancy increases, the burden of disease and disability continues to escalate in ageing societies, necessitating a proactive approach to identifying disease risk. While chronological age conventionally serves as the yardstick for measuring ageing, it fails to encapsulate the intricate and diverse trajectories of age-related decline experienced by individuals across various organ systems. Biological ageing thus gained prominence as a more nuanced marker for disease risk and mortality. Current research on ageing predominantly focuses on the elderly population, neglecting that age-related changes to physiological processes may commence in early adulthood. The WHO Social Determinants of Health framework shows that structural inequalities will influence health through intermediary determinants, including material, behavioural, and psychosocial factors. People's socioeconomic position (SEP) can indicate structural inequalities, which influence the ageing process. Wealth as a crucial measure of SEP is particularly salient to older people as it captures the life-course accumulation of assets, and one of the different measures of SEP, area levels of deprivation, may be more suitable for whole-adulthood people. Limited attention has been given to residential environments and multiple organ systems ageing measurements, but less to the entire age range of adults. Exposures to poor living environments may increase people's stress levels, and biological changes may occur if the body is exposed to chronic stress, resulting in dysregulation of the multiple bodily systems, which may increase biological ageing speed. Identifying the biological ageing process and its social determinants throughout the entire adult lifespan can delay or avoid the onset of age-related diseases and substantially enhance health outcomes in later life.This study aims to assess the association between the residential environment and adults' biological ageing process using data from Understanding Society. Firstly, this study will compare the multiple organ systems ageing measurements for adults with different socio-demographic characteristics, and then use Pearson and Spearman correlations to see their association with physical and cognitive functioning measures, as well as use latent growth curve modelling to track how the measures of biological ageing are associated with a subsequent decline in health-related quality of life. Secondly, this study will examine the association between area-level SEP measurements and multiple organ systems ageing measurements using two-level random-intercept regression models. Thirdly, this study will explore whether individual physical housing environments have potential mediating effects and to what extent the individual housing environment mediates associations between area deprivation and biological ageing using structural equation modelling.In this study, area deprivation indexes can be seen as multidimensional area-level structural determinants through material mediation pathways (individual physical housing environments) influencing biological ageing for all age-span adults in the UK. This study can help identify residential inequalities in resources across small geographic areas, which has significant implications for breaking the cycles of poverty and reducing the cost and resources required for ageing and disease-related interventions to minimize health inequalities.