Anthropometric Indicators of Child Health for Research on Adult Health

描述(申请人提供)：老龄化研究日益集中在与慢性疾病发展相关的社会和生物因素的生命周期模型上。这需要有关早期生活状况的信息，可以从年龄较大的受访者那里收集。完整的身高通常被用来衡量儿童的健康和营养状况。身高的一个组成部分，腿长，似乎反映了1岁后儿童的发育，可能与以后患慢性病的风险有关。英国的研究表明，较短的腿长度与较高的老年死亡率有关。美国的一项大型研究没有发现任何这方面的证据。我们假设，在平均身高最短的人群中，腿长将与健康和死亡率更密切地联系在一起，在这些人群中，身材大小的变化是由环境因素而不是遗传因素决定的。我们将使用来自四个不同体型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、拉美裔美国人和日裔美国人。公共卫生相关性：这项研究将使用成人身高的两个组成部分，研究儿童时期生长发育受损作为老年人慢性病风险因素的重要性。腿长反映了从1岁到青春期的生长；躯干长度更多地反映了出生长度。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.