Aging-Related Biodemography of Life Course Physiology and Environmental Modifiers

描述（由申请人提供）：新的综合生物人口学和老年学框架，对疾病和老年状况的更好的病因学理解，以及微创标本采集的技术进步，导致越来越广泛的生物标记物阵列被纳入人口研究。这个职业奖将利用这些进展来检查相互作用的生理（如器官）系统的调节损伤。理论上，这种损伤反映了对社会和身体挑战的适应能力下降。我们假设：1)生理系统中受损的调节达到临界质量会加速脆弱、残疾和死亡的风险；2)生理系统之间的调节受损，以及脆弱、残疾和死亡，在长期遭受高水平环境挑战的人的生命过程中往往出现得更早；3)观察到的预期寿命的增加代表了健康状况改善的长期趋势，并且相对于较老的出生队列，在较晚出生的队列中，生理系统和结果的调节功能受损的晚发性，并且与美国白人相比，这种延迟在面临更多挑战、社会经济地位较低的人群和来自代表性不足的少数群体的美国人中较少。我将使用来自五个主要人口研究的数据，并分三步实现我的目标，这包括我的目标。步骤是确定：何时以及如何出现调节障碍，它如何与潜在的后遗症相关联，以及易感亚群之间的差异（目标1）；受损的生理调节是否受到环境挑战的影响（目标2）；以及个人和环境因素如何共同塑造美国老年人的健康和功能，无论是个人还是人口水平（目标3）。在奖励期间，我将获得老年人面临的物理环境挑战，先进的统计方法以及生物学，临床和实验室内容的专门培训。这一培训将使我能够继续发展成为一名独立的研究人员，专注于了解社区老年人的社会和身体挑战与健康之间的生物学途径，以及这些途径对人口健康变化的意义。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): New integrative biodemographic and gerontological frameworks, a better etiologic understanding of both disease and geriatric conditions, and technological advances in minimally-invasive specimen collection are resulting in the incorporation of increasingly broad arrays of biological markers into population research. This career award will draw on these advances to examine impairment in the regulation of interacting physiologic (e.g., organ) systems. Such impairment is theorized to reflect decreased resilience to social and physical challenges. We hypothesize that 1) reaching a critical mass of impaired regulation among physiologic systems accelerates the risk of frailty, disability, and mortality; 2) that impaired regulation among physiologic systems, as well as frailty, disability and mortality, tend to emerge earlier in the life course in persons who are chronically subjected to high levels of environmental challenge; and 3) that observed increases in life expectancy represent secular trends in improved health and later onset of impaired regulation among physiologic systems and outcomes in more recent birth cohorts, relative to older birth cohorts, and that this delay will be less in those with greater exposure to challenges, lower socioeconomic status, and Americans from underrepresented minority groups compared to white Americans. I will use data from five major population-based studies and achieve my goal in three steps that comprise my aims. The steps are to determine: when and how impairment in regulation emerges, how it is associated with potential sequelae, and variations across vulnerable subgroups (Aim 1); whether impaired physiologic regulation is affected by challenges in the environment (Aim 2); and how individual and environmental factors jointly shape the health and function of older adults in the U.S., both individually and at the population level (Aim 3). During the award period I will obtain specialized training in physical environment challenges facing older adults, advanced statistical methods, and biological, clinical, and laboratory content. This training will enable me to continue my development into an independent researcher focused on understanding the biological pathways that link social and physical challenges to health among community-dwelling older adults, and the significance of these pathways for changes in population health.