Anthropometric Indicators of Child Health for Research on Adult Health

描述（由申请人提供）：关于衰老的研究越来越关注与慢性疾病发展相关的社会和生物因素的生命周期模型。这需要从老年受访者那里收集有关早期生活状况的信息。完成身高通常被用作儿童健康和营养的衡量标准。腿长是身高的组成部分之一，似乎反映了 1 岁后儿童的生长情况，并且可能与以后患慢性病的风险有关。英国的研究表明，较短的腿长与老年人的高死亡率有关。美国的一项大型研究没有发现任何证据证明这一点。我们假设，在平均身高最短的人群中，腿长与健康和死亡率的关系更为密切，其中体格尺寸的变化主要由环境因素而不是遗传因素决定。我们将使用来自四个具有不同身体结构和健康模式的人群的数据来测试这一点：非西班牙裔白人、非裔美国人、西班牙裔和日裔美国人。公共卫生相关性：本研究将利用成人身高的两个组成部分来研究儿童时期生长发育受损作为老年人慢性病危险因素的重要性。腿长反映了 1 岁到青春期之间的生长情况；躯干长度更能反映出生长度。这项研究将证明儿童营养不良和疾病的长期后果，从而强调儿童健康计划的重要性。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Research on aging is increasingly focused on life cycle models of social and biological factors associated with the development of chronic diseases. This requires information about early life conditions that can be collected from respondents at older ages. Completed height is often used as a measure of child health and nutrition. One component of height, leg length, appears to reflect child growth after age 1 and may be associated with later risks of chronic disease. Studies in Britain show shorter leg length is associated with high mortality at the older ages. A large study in the U.S. did not find any evidence of this. We hypothesize that leg length will be more closely associated with health and mortality in populations with the shortest average heights in which variations in frame size are dominated by environmental factors rather than genetics. We will test this using data from four populations with different body frames and health patterns: non-Hispanic whites, African-Americans Hispanics, and Japanese-Americans. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: This research will examine the importance of impaired growth and development during childhood as risk factors for chronic diseases among older adults using two components of adult height. Leg length reflects growth between ages 1 year and puberty; trunk length is more reflective of birth length. This research will demonstrate the long-term consequences of childhood under-nutrition and disease and thereby emphasize the importance of child health programs.