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

随着预期寿命的延长，老龄社会的疾病和残疾负担继续加重，因此需要采取积极主动的方法来确定疾病风险。虽然实足年龄通常被用作衡量衰老的尺度，但它无法涵盖个体在不同器官系统中经历的与年龄相关的衰退的复杂而多样的轨迹。因此，作为疾病风险和死亡率的一个更细微的标志，生物衰老得到了突出的地位。目前关于老龄化的研究主要集中在老年人口，忽视了与年龄相关的生理过程变化可能在成年早期开始。世卫组织健康的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、行为和社会心理因素，影响健康。人们的社会经济地位（SEP）可以表明影响老龄化进程的结构性不平等。财富作为衡量SEP的一项重要指标，对老年人尤为重要，因为它反映了一生中资产的积累，而衡量SEP的不同指标之一，即地区贫困水平，可能更适合成年后的人。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，可能会发生生物学变化，导致多个身体系统失调，从而可能增加生物老化速度。在整个成年期确定生物老化过程及其社会决定因素，可以延缓或避免与年龄有关的疾病的发生，并大大提高晚年的健康状况。本研究旨在利用“理解社会”的数据评估居住环境与成人生物老化过程之间的关系。首先，本研究将比较具有不同社会人口特征的成年人的多器官系统衰老测量值，然后使用Pearson和Spearman相关性来查看它们与身体和认知功能测量值的关联，以及使用潜在生长曲线模型来跟踪生物衰老测量值与随后与健康相关的生活质量下降之间的关系。其次，本研究将使用双水平随机截距回归模型检验区域水平SEP测量与多器官系统老化测量之间的关系。第三，本研究将利用结构方程模型探讨个体物理居住环境是否具有潜在的中介作用，以及个体居住环境在多大程度上中介面积剥夺与生物老龄化之间的关联。在这项研究中，区域剥夺指数可以被视为通过物质中介途径（个人物理住房环境）影响英国所有年龄段成年人生物老化的多维区域级结构决定因素。这项研究有助于查明小地理区域内的居民资源不平等，这对打破贫困循环和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大意义。

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.