Personality and Health--A Longtitudinal Study

描述（由申请人提供）：寻找方法来改变我们的肥胖社会的过程是一个国家的健康优先事项。这项正在进行的纵向研究的下一阶段将致力于研究肥胖和其他主要死亡原因的风险因素，如心脏病，2型糖尿病和癌症。多种族的夏威夷人格与健康队列提供了一个前所未有的机会，以评估童年人格特征影响中年健康状况的过程，包括肥胖，由医疗专业人员在40-45年后评估。其目的是评估儿童性格特征作为中年超重和肥胖以及其他健康风险因素的决定因素，并评估心理社会机制，以解释这些儿童性格特征的长期影响。将检查这些过程中的性别和种族差异，并评估40多岁的人格稳定性。为实现这些目标，将再完成375项基本医疗和心理检查，使接受检查的总人数达到900人，通过问卷收集进一步的信息，并将这些新数据与已经收集的数据结合起来。夏威夷队列的异常丰富的数据集包括40多年前获得的儿童个性评估，当代成人数据，中年基线体检中评估的许多健康风险因素的状态，以及用于未来测试的生物样本的冷冻数据库。在许多预期的贡献中，这项研究将促进对儿童性格特征对肥胖和健康产生长期影响的过程的理解;先前不良经历对成人肥胖和健康的影响;为什么教育程度会影响肥胖和健康;日裔美国人，夏威夷土著人和高加索人之间中年肥胖和健康状况的生命历程途径的种族差异;和性别差异。与NIA的使命相一致，该项目将通过确定成年人健康不良和肥胖风险的新的儿童风险因素，从而为早期预防干预开辟新的可能性，为改善美国老年人的健康和福祉做出贡献。该项目还将有助于研究基于种族的健康差异，这是NIH的优先事项。这项研究证实了一种新的方法来预防中年慢性病，使寿命研究成为可能。该项目的一个重要实际成果是有可能针对中年有肥胖风险的儿童。众所周知，长期减肥对成年人来说很难实现，部分原因是它需要终身行为模式的重大改变。通过使高危儿童偏离导致成人肥胖的生活途径来更早地干预以防止体重增加可能是一种更成功的策略。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Finding ways to alter the course of our fattening society is a national health priority. The next phase of this ongoing longitudinal study will be devoted to the study of obesity and other risk factors for the leading causes of death such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, and cancer. The multiethnic Hawaii Personality and Health cohort offers an unprecedented opportunity to evaluate the processes by which childhood personality traits affect midlife health status, including obesity, as assessed by medical professionals 40-45 years later. The aims are to evaluate childhood personality traits as determinants of midlife overweight and obesity and other health risk factors, and to evaluate psychosocial mechanisms to explain these long- lasting influences of childhood traits. Gender and ethnic group differences in these processes will be examined, and stability of personality over 40+ years evaluated. These aims will be accomplished by completing a further 375 baseline medical and psychological examinations to bring the total examined to 900, collecting further information by questionnaires, and integrating these new data with those already collected. The extraordinarily rich data set for the Hawaii cohort includes childhood personality assessments obtained 40+ years ago, contemporary adult data, status on numerous health risk factors assessed at the baseline medical exam conducted at midlife, and a frozen data bank of biological samples for future testing. Among the many expected contributions, this research will advance understanding of the processes by which childhood personality traits have long-term effects on obesity and health; the influence of prior adverse experiences on adult obesity and health; why educational attainment affects obesity and health; ethnic differences in life-course pathways to midlife obesity and health status among Japanese Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Caucasians; and gender differences in these pathways. Consistent with the mission of NIA, this project will contribute to efforts to improve the health and well-being of older Americans by identifying new childhood risk factors for adult ill-health and obesity risk and thus opening up new possibilities for early preventive interventions. This project will also contribute to the study of ethnicity-based health disparities, which is an NIH-wide priority. This research exemplifies a new approach to the prevention of chronic diseases of middle age made possible by life span studies such as this. A significant practical outcome of this project is the potential for targeting children at risk of becoming obese by midlife. Long-term weight loss is notoriously hard for adults to achieve, in part because it requires major changes in life-long behavioral patterns. Intervening much earlier to prevent weight gain by deflecting high-risk children from life pathways leading to adult obesity may be a more successful strategy.