New Methods of Studying Aging, Health and Longevity: Combining Longitudinal Data

描述（由申请人提供）：该项目的广泛和长期目标是，通过开发整合不同类型纵向数据的工具，以及开发将有关衰老相关变化的生物学动机信息纳入已开发模型的技术，详细阐述一种全面分析老年人健康相关变化的方法。这种方法的关键思想是对使用不同观测计划收集的数据进行联合统计分析。分析将基于全面的数学和计算机模型，描述关节年龄在生理状态和健康/幸福/生存状态方面的相关变化。为了详细阐述这些模型和方法，将讨论以下具体目标。1)详细阐述健康、死亡率和衰老的先进模型，能够描述个人生理历史及其对疾病和死亡风险的影响。在这些模型中纳入描述特定年龄的生理指标“正常”值范围的能力。推广这些模型，将其扩展到调查依赖竞争风险的问题，并将其应用于生理和健康/福祉变化的数据。2)阐述研究抗逆性下降速率的隐性异质性对作为风险因素函数的疾病和死亡风险形态的影响的方法和相应的数学和计算机模型。3)将描述个体健康/幸福状态主要变化的有限状态连续时间分量纳入到详细模型中。公共卫生相关性：拟议的分析与公共卫生问题直接相关，因为它专门用于开发参数估计精度更高的模型，以提高对老年人健康/福祉/生存状况的个性化和全民预测的质量，并用于评估可能的健康/福祉预防干预措施的效果。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The broad, long-term objective of the project is to elaborate an approach for a comprehensive analysis of health-related changes in aging individuals by developing tools for integration of distinct types of longitudinal data and elaboration of techniques for incorporation of the biologically-motivated information on aging associated changes into the developed models. The key idea of this approach is to perform joint statistical analyses of data collected using different observational plans. The analyses will be based on comprehensive mathematical and computer models describing joint age related changes in physiological state and health/well-being/survival status. To elaborate such models and methods the following specific aims will be addressed. 1) Elaborate advanced models of health, mortality and aging capable of describing individual physiological histories and their effects on risk of disease and death. Incorporate in these models the ability to describe the range of "normal" values of physiological indices specific for a given age. Generalize these models extending them to investigate the problem of dependent competing risks and apply them to data on physiological and health/well-being changes. 2) Elaborate methods and respective mathematical and computer models for investigation of effects of hidden heterogeneity in the rate of decline in stress resistance on the shape of the risks of disease and death considered as functions of risk factors. 3) Incorporate finite-state continuous-time component describing major changes in individual's health/well- being status into the elaborated models. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: The proposed analysis is directly relevant to public health issues since it is specifically designed to develop models with increased accuracy of parameter estimates for improving quality of individualized and population-wide predictions of health/well-being/survival status of the elderly individuals as well as for evaluating the effect of possible health/well-being preventive interventions.