How can biomarkers and genetics improve our understanding of society and health?

了解人们的社会和经济生活如何与他们的健康相关，对于改善国家的健康、整个社会和经济至关重要。生物医学、社会和经济科学的研究人员使用来自世界领先研究的可靠、高质量数据来帮助发展这种理解。这项研究有助于揭示隐藏在我们日常生活背后的复杂社会和生物过程。本提案旨在支持这一目标，以便更好地了解人们的生活和健康。它基于“理解社会”——一项丰富的社会和经济研究，该研究每年采访相同的家庭，最近包括一次健康访谈，护士采取了一些“生物标志物”或客观健康测量。这些客观指标，如血压、肺功能和血液样本，随后被分析为心脏病、糖尿病和贫血、肝肾功能和虚弱的指标。该项目由一个多学科研究团队和国际合作伙伴领导，有两个广泛的目标：*贡献关于人类社会、经济、环境环境与健康之间双向关系的新科学知识；*建立对在合作项目中共同使用生物标志物、遗传社会和经济数据的价值和能力的理解。该提案将包括一系列范例研究项目，这些项目不仅将解决重要的研究问题，而且将展示这些领域的跨学科[数据和]研究的价值。它将调查和使用最好的统计技术，并与同事分享这些方法的学习成果。此外，我们还将：*在特定的社会科学学科——如地理、经济学和社会学——开展一系列“拓展”活动，调查和传播使用生物标志物来解决与之相关的社会研究问题的价值。*设立研究金计划，让新研究人员提出社会科学和健康科学结合的项目，由社会科学家和生物医学科学家共同指导。*举办一系列研讨会和培训活动，并提供支持资源，如特殊数据集，以建立在社会科学研究中使用生物标志物的理解和能力。*发展国际合作，吸引世界各地的专家参与项目，并举办一年一度的大师班和会议，听取他们的意见；*让决策者参与项目的监督，并预留部分资金，让他们分析与其政策职责有关的数据。将通过简报和政策活动广泛分享与政策有关的调查结果。这项研究将有助于确定卫生问题出现的时间和方式，使决策者能够更有效地制定有针对性的政策。它还将帮助我们了解健康状况不佳如何影响人们的生活能力，这也可能使决策者能够确定可以预防或减少这些负面后果的适当时间和情况。这种研究直接有助于ESRC影响行为和为干预提供信息的战略优先事项。它还将提高研究界从事这类研究的能力，从而促进这一领域的未来发展。

Understanding how people's social and economics lives relate to their health is essential to improving the nation's health, society in general and the economy. Researchers in biomedical, social and economic sciences use robust, high quality data from world-leading studies to help develop this understanding. This research helps reveal hidden facts about the complex social and biological processes at work behind our everyday lives.This proposal seeks to support this ambition to better understand people's lives and their health. It is based on Understanding Society - a rich social and economic study, which interviews the same families every year and has recently included a health interview where nurses took a number of 'biomarkers' or objective health measurements. These objective measures such as blood pressure, lung function and blood samples, have subsequently been analysed for indicators of heart disease, diabetes and anaemia, liver and kidney function and frailty. The project is led by a multi-disciplinary research team with international partners and has two broad aims:* to contribute new scientific knowledge about the two-way relationship between people's social, economic, environmental circumstances and health;* to build understandings of the value of and capacity for using biomarkers, genetic social and economic data together in collaborative projects.The proposal will include a suite of exemplar research projects, which will not only address important research questions but demonstrate the value of inter-disciplinary [data and] research in these fields. It will investigate and use the best statistical techniques, and share learning with colleagues about these approaches. In addition, we will also:*undertake a set of 'outreach' initiatives in specific social science disciplines - such as geography, economics and sociology - to investigate and disseminate the value of employing biomarkers to address social research questions relevant to them. *establish a fellowship scheme for new researchers to propose projects at the interface of social and health sciences, which will be carried out with joint mentorship by social and biomedical scientists. * hold a range of workshops and training events, and produce supporting resources, such as special datasets, to build understanding and capacity of the use of biomarkers in social science research. * develop international collaborations to draw expertise from across the world into the project, and hold an annual master class and conference with contributions from them;* involve policy makers in the oversight of the project, as well as set aside some funds for them to undertake analyses of the data relevant to their policy responsibilities. Policy relevant findings will be shared widely through briefings and a policy event.This research will help to identify when and how health problems emerge in ways that enable policy makers to target policies more effectively. It will also help us understand how poor health affects people's ability to live their lives, which again may enable policy makers to identify appropriate times and situations when these negative consequences can be prevented or reduced. Such research directly contributes to the ESRC's strategic priority to influence behaviours and inform interventions. It will also improve the capacity of the research community to engage in this kind of research leading to future developments in this field.