Measuring stress and epigenetic aging among Black older adults in community-based longitudinal studies of aging

项目总结 压力是导致健康和老龄化的种族/民族差异的基本途径。黑人老年人经历 他们的生活过程中有更多的压力源，年龄比其他组更快，这从大多数 疾病和生物、身体和认知功能的下降。其中一个潜在的机制 将压力与多种与年龄相关的疾病联系起来是一种表观遗传学变化，现在被称为 年龄增长。“大型、多样化的国家数据集在收集DNA甲基化方面投入了时间和金钱 (DNaM)--多种族样本中表观遗传学变化的一种常见衡量标准，提供了机械性的见解 转化为个体对环境应激源的分子反应，环境应激源是疾病过程和信息的基础 我们对健康方面的社会差异所表现出来的生物学过程的理解。集成 考虑到不平等，表观遗传学对基于种族的人口层面的健康差距的研究是重要的，并且 种族/少数民族人口迅速老龄化和在不同研究中对dNaM的巨额投资 设计，种族/民族，祖先，和不同的年龄。建议的项目比较了压力， 不同年龄的黑人和非洲裔老年人的人体测量、生物学和表观遗传学年龄分布 健康与退休研究(HRS)和长寿研究中的队列(年轻的和长寿的) 和非裔美国人家庭的压力。坐在基因组数据革命的尖端，这 提案将确保我得到作为一名生物社会老年病学家所需的培训，以便独立地与社会 对老年黑人成年人的不同数据集进行压力、生物社会和表观遗传学数据，并实现目标 在这项提案中概述了。通过K01职业发展奖，我将结合我丰富的经验 研究种族/民族在压力和衰老方面的差异，并将获得额外的分子生物学培训， 生物信息学、流行病学、表观遗传机制、生物伦理学和职业发展。圣地亚哥 州立大学公共卫生学院是接受培训所需技能的理想地点 阶段考虑到跨学科的性质以及通过联合博士项目与加州大学圣迭戈分校的密切联系， 斯坦因老年研究所和圣地亚哥阿尔茨海默病资源中心以及 遗传流行病学、社会基因组学和生物信息学领域的领军人物提供的课程和指导。 完成培训和研究目标将产生科学报告和出版物，初步 整合纵向dNaM数据(目前正在收集)的成功竞争R01资金的数据 在不同的纵向队列研究中，老龄化与生命过程压力和纵向健康结果有关。这 该项目将改进黑人社区的老龄化措施，提供更准确的老龄化图景 经验。这项研究还将支持老龄化研究的范式转变，将医学框架与 以黑人为中心的社会框架，挑战种族主义的健康叙事，提高我们对 并为规划黑人人口中的老龄化资源提供洞察力。

PROJECT SUMMARY Stress is a fundamental pathway to race/ethnic variation in health and aging. Black older adults experience more stressors over their life course and age faster than other groups as evidenced by earlier onset of most diseases and declines in biological, physical and cognitive functioning. One of the underlying mechanisms connecting stress to multiple age-related diseases is epigenetic changes, now termed one of the “hallmarks of aging.” Large, diverse national data sets have invested time and money in collecting DNA methylation (DNAm)—a common measure of epigenetic changes—in multiethnic samples, providing mechanistic insights into an individual’s molecular response to environmental stressors that underlie disease processes and inform our understanding of the biological processes through which social disparities in health manifest. Integrating epigenetics into population-level race-based health disparities research is important given the unequal, and rapid aging of racial/ethnic minority populations and the huge investment in DNAm across different study designs, race/ethnic groups, ancestries, and at different ages. The proposed project compares the stress, anthropometric, biological, and epigenetic age profiles of Black and African ancestry older adults across age cohorts (young-old and long-lived) in both the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and the Study of Longevity and Stress in African American Families (SOLSAA). Sitting at the cusp of the genomic data revolution, this proposal will ensure I get the training I need as a biosocial gerontologist to work independently with social stress, biosocial, and epigenetic data across distinct data sets of older Black adults and fulfill the objectives outlined in this proposal. Through the K01 Career Development Award, I will combine my extensive experience studying race/ethnic disparities in stress and aging and will gain additional training in molecular biology, bioinformatics, epidemiology, epigenetic mechanisms, bioethics and professional development. San Diego State University School of Public Health is an ideal location to receive the skills needed during the training phase given the multidisciplinary nature and close connection with UCSD through joint doctoral programs, the Stein Institute of Aging, and San Diego Alzheimer’s Disease Resource Center as well as availability of coursework, and mentorship from leaders in genetic epidemiology, social genomics, and bioinformatics. Completion of the training and research aims will result in scientific presentations and publications, preliminary data to successfully compete for R01 funding that integrates longitudinal DNAm data (currently being collected) in diverse, longitudinal cohort studies of aging with life course stress and longitudinal health outcomes. This project will improve measures of aging in Black communities, providing a more accurate picture of the aging experience. This study will also support a paradigm shift in aging research, combining medical frameworks with Black centered social frameworks that challenge racialized narratives of health, improve our understanding of aging, and support insight for the planning of aging resources among Black populations.